File sharing part 2

I may have cracked it. File sharing that is. Printer sharing, as I have mentioned previously, is a far off dream because the drivers for my printer don't exist for Vista.

I had a brainwave. I turned off the Windows Firewall. On XP the Windows Firewall is an inoffensive little beast. In four years of XP bliss I never noticed it working away in the background. On Vista it was turned off by default - which is really weird on a hypochodriac operating system - and I thought nothing of turning it on. Having turned it off again I can now see all the shared folders on the network. I can even go inside some of them and look at files.

One of the folders is misbehaving still. How long must I wait with this screen?


A few minutes is what it says. However the folder in question is actually usable on the network. Maybe it is just a device to keep us from using networking because secretly Microsoft know the operating system is full to the gunwales with security flaws. By making file-sharing so totally impossible we will all give up and buy memory sticks instead.

So how did I get this far? I'm not really sure. But this is something like it.

Click the Windows button and then Network. At the top is a link to Network and Sharing Center (sic - I am British damn it). You can also access this Center via the Control Panel.

Sharing and discovery needs to be turned on. You also need to change settings next to make the workgroup the same as all your other computers; which could well be MSHOME. File sharing should be on and password protected sharing off (unless you are a 14 year old hacker then you can probably get past this facility anyway).

Now, go to the folder you wish to share, right click it, Share. You then need to add Everyone to the list of people that can access the folder, click share and then get the "this may take a few minutes screen". For ever. But after 10 minutes click cancel because it has done it anyway.

To describe it as a bit clunky is an understatement. It is absolutely ridiculous. Vista is too busy saving you from your own feckless nature to trust you to have control of your machine.