Oh my god. I didn't know this level of needed to happen needed to exist. Time to do another G.A. Character helps us do something.
Now Chitose thought that we had all had a good handle on how to share a disk in Microsoft Windows by this time. But she's here to help us anyway.
First we find the drive and/or folder that we want to share. For informational purposes we will share a folder named Downloads on the D: drive of this computer, but this technique can be applied to any drive or folder.
Chitose explains that first we navigate to the folder, right click, and get the properties of the folder, when you get there, click on Sharing:
Then, Chitose wants us to click Advanced Sharing:
Check the box at the top, and give the share a name. Chitose wants us to know that you don't need to be redundant and say "on <computer name>" because Windows will do that for you in the computer browser on Windows XP and higher. You will simply see shares listed as "<Share name> on <computer name>"
Click Permissions:
This is where the fun starts. Microsoft windows uses an
implicit deny system for file and folder security both on the system, and off the system. This makes the rules logical, but strange if you don't understand them. Denying Full Control to "Everyone" and then adding Full Control to yourself, would deny control to you. The reason for this, is you are part of everyone. However, if there are
NO permissions set for "Everyone" but your user name has permissions, then you will be granted those permissions you set for yourself. Say you are Joe The Plumber and someone named John Smith attempts to connect to that share, because the only permissions listed are for Joe The Plumber, John Smith will have no access. Windows assumes that any time there are no instructions for it to follow, it should say no.
Now, If you want an open share for everyone to view, you can leave everyone in that box, but you'll probably want a password protected share for your files from what you've told us already. Highlight Everyone and click "Remove"
Once you've done that, you can add another user to that list by clicking the "Add" button. Type the user(s) you want to add to the big box at the bottom of that panel and click Check Names. It will reformat those names to ones it understands. Click OK. Highlight the new user(s) and give them permissions for each.
Click OK to close the Permissions dialog. Keep clicking Apply and then OK until you're back to the folder, you should see this:
(on Windows XP that will be a hand)
That Icon indicates that you have successfully shared the folder. Now to Access it. Lets Ask Vanilla to help us out with this.
Vanilla shows us that "Downloads on Hikaru" shows up in the computer browser on another computer now. See? that wasn't so hard. Vanilla mentions however, that she had to enter a valid user name and password for Hikaru in order to see those shares. If you don't see your shares, Vanilla advises you to either match your user name and password to the other computer, or manually browse to the path that windows uses to access the share. It's shown here in the yellow tool tip, and is easy to guess or actually know, as it will be "\\<computer name>\<share name>"
Thanks Chitose, Vanilla! You've been a great help in educating the masses about Windows shares.
Sharing a drive between two computers 
