Sharing on Win 7

Whoever came up with the crock of s.....t that is called "sharing " on Win 7 should be sent back to grade school and taught the meaning of the KISS principle!https://www.sevenforums.com/images/smilies/cry.gif
I've spent ,ore time on trying to get my 28 computers to see each other and to try and get file sharing to work than I spent on anything else over the past few months.
Why change the protocol used on XP that worked perfect to the current mess?
My IT consultants are complaining that they too are wasting their lives trying to sort this mess out.
Tonight I connected a new computer: Guess what, the shared drives that every other computer on the network can see and access can't be accessed because "you require permission from the computer's administrator to make changes".....And all I'm trying to do is copy some needed files across, but noways can I get it to accept me as the workgroup administrator to do something as simple as that.