Windows Doesn’t Like to Share

In yet another attempt to use the standard features of Windows I find that Sharing on Windows 7 is a complete hassle and is no where near as simple as it used to be with previous versions. On Windows XP, as well as Windows Server 2003 which I have running at home, sharing a folder is as easy as right-click, Sharing, Everyone – Read. And then the folder magically appears for all machines that can see the host.

Windows 7 manages to take this simple concept, throw it out the window, set it on fire, piss on the ashes and come up with a whole new, more complicated way of doing it.

Two co-workers and myself use Windows 7. We aren’t on a domain. I don’t think we’re even in the same Workgroup, Homegroup or whatever super cool name Windows calls it now days. We are however connected into the same hub and want to share files. You would think this would be easy. Not so anymore.

The simple act of setting Everyone – Read on a folder doesn’t do a thing. It’s not shared like you would expect. The only way we got this to work was to actually create a new machine account, set a password, then when the user connects they’re prompted for credentials and then low and behold you can see the files. This also means they can log onto my machine if they want to! Nice security!

Clearly being an Administrator on your own machine doesn’t mean anything anymore, and the word Everyone has a different meaning in the Microsoft world than it does for the rest of us. Everyone is some group of people nobody knows about. Seriously, why does it have to be this hard to use this stupid Operating System? An no, my server and workstations at home aren’t in a domain, or part of the same workgroup, and yet, they share files with no problems what so ever.

Yet again, another function that used to work, ruined by Windows 7, or rather Windows Vista SP3 as it should be called.