Windows 7: Sharing within Homegroup

So I belong to a Homegroup network involving my family, I have turned off every kind of sharing possible, but my PC still appears in Network. Even though the media sharing shows up, it prevents anyone from going into it from Network, including myself.

But my PC still shows up in Network and I can go into it, looking at my entire user folder including desktop, received files, etc. As well as the public folder on my PC. Just because it is showing up and accessible from my computer, is it sharing it with everyone else?



I only ask because in the first RC of windows 7 my PC would show up, but whenever you clicked it, it would try to load and an error would pop up, so that is what I was expecting.

I also tried to remove sharing for the specific folders in Network, but it says access denied, even though I am the only User and the administrator on this computer. Thanks in advance.

Hi Shinobi and welcome to the forum.

If you don't want to share, maybe you should leave the Homegroup. You've already disabled sharing, but you're still in a Homegroup.

You should test it from another computer if you can, because browsing shares from your own computer doesn't necessarily mean others on the network can.

Thanks sup3rsprt, I thought I had to belong to my homegroup to receive an internet connection. I left the homegroup but my PC still shows up on the Network list the same as it did before. I will try to access it from another computer when I can - and when I do I'll post my results.

You should try turning off "Network discovery" in advanced Network sharing. That should make your computer invisible to others computers on the network.

Yes that's true. It also makes the network seem invisible to itself. However that option doesn't really make shared resources inaccessible. What makes shares inaccessible is to disable file sharing (or use the firewall to block the file sharing ports).

For example, I can disable "Network Discovery" on a computer having shared files but still access it by typing \\computername or \\ip.address.of.computer in the My Computer address bar.

True, that will only make that computer invisable on the network which I assumed was what he was asking about. That advice wasn't meant to make anything secure just harder to see.

There are always ways to hack around the basic security but making the computer invisable keeps most honest people from being tempted to look at those files.

I wonder if shutting down all the network sharing features would make it harder to get into a networked sharing files on another network computer?

Or would getting there with \\computername or ip.address be possible then after shutting off all networking features. I should try to hack my own network and see if it's possible.

That only happens if you do things like remove client for MS networks or disable all of the operating system's file sharing services.

If you just disable file sharing the normal way, it doesn't prevent you from accessing shares folders on another computer.

Turning off Network discovery will stop your PC from finding other shared items

Turning of File and Printer sharing should stop other machines finding your shared items

This is the default for the Public network location - where you do not wish to share files in a public location (wireless Hotspot?)

It should also stop your computer from showing in the Network (or Workgroup) list of another computer. But you're right in that it doesn't disable access to shared folders. That is what I was trying to say earlier.

I thought that the two items were separate, but a quick bit of research would seem to contradict this .

Also I'm not sure what the situation is with regards to these advanced options for a computer on a Home Network and being joined to a homegroup

It may be that the homegroup will override these selections.

Homegroup utilises IPv6 whilst the standard advanced sharing options are on IPv4 so for total isolation It may be necessary to disable both

Will have to check this out