Windows 7: Preventing others on network from viewing my shared folders

I’m running Windows 7 Home Premium on the three machines I have at home. All three are connected to the same network. I would like to share files between two of the machines so I created a homegroup and added only these two machines. For the folders I would like to share between the two, I changed the folder’s sharing permission from “Everyone’ to ‘Homegroup’.



What I have noticed is the third machine that is not part of this homegroup (it is owned by a student who is temporarily renting a room in our house) is still able to view the other machines from within windows explorer and even double click on them to get a listing of folders that are being shared. Granted, when they try to open any of these folders, they get a message saying they do not have the required permission.

Ideally, I would like to have the homegroup machines only visible in explorer to users who are part of the homegroup. Likewise, any user not in the homegroup would not be able to see the other machines in explorer. Is this setup possible?

It sounds to me like you do not want this student to be a part of your regular network at all.

Some routers "like mine" have a guest zone for a wireless connection that is outside your normal network. That would prevent them from seeing those folders. The set up and options for routers is different so it's difficult to give exact directions for this.

For a wired connection you may be able to set up a static IP address outside the normal range of your regular network for them to connect too.

I have no problem with the person being on my home network as far as internet access. However, there are shared personal items on the network like family pictures and videos that I would like to keep private.

With regards to your reply, are there any settings available within Windows itself that will hide shared folders from non-homegroup members?

This posted as is from Windows 7 Help.

To prevent the file or folder from being shared with anyone, in the toolbar, click Share with, and then click Nobody.

To share the file or folder with some people but not others, in the toolbar, click Share with, click Specific people, select each person you want to share with, and then click Add. Click Share when you are finished.

To change the level of access to a file or folder, in the toolbar, click Share with, and then select either Homegroup (Read) or Homegroup (Read/Write).

Is this any assistance ?

In that case don't let the guest join the Homegroup, and make sure they are using a different Workgroup name then what you are using for everyone else.

Also make sure that only the default Homegroup files are shared which should limit the shares to only members of the original Homegroup. You should also turn off Public file sharing. Doing that should put the double whammy on any attempts to get into any of the Network files.