Unsuccessful at Sharing the Public Folder

Believe it or not, I'm having trouble sharing the Windows 7 Public folder.

There are two computers on my network: One has Windows 7 and the other has Windows 8. The Windows 7 PC can see the Windows 8 Public folder. The Windows 8 PC cannot see the Windows 7 Public folder.

I do not use a Homegroup.

In the Windows 7 Network and Sharing Center I have the following settings for the "Home or Work" profile:

• Network discovery is turned on
• File and printer sharing is turned on
• Public folder sharing is turned on ("Turn on sharing so anyone with network access...")
• File sharing connections - Use 128-bit encryption to help protect...
• Password protected sharing is turned on.

It seems like everything is setup correctly, and yet when I right-click on the Windows 7 Public folder and go to the Sharing tab, it says the Public folder is "Not Shared"! Maybe I'm misunderstanding something? How can I fix this?

Follow this tutorial

That's the tutorial I followed in the first place. Any more tips?

Have you checked if the "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper" is started and "Automatic" ?

Daddyman said:

Believe it or not, I'm having trouble sharing the Windows 7 Public folder.

There are two computers on my network: One has Windows 7 and the other has Windows 8. The Windows 7 PC can see the Windows 8 Public folder. The Windows 8 PC cannot see the Windows 7 Public folder.

I do not use a Homegroup.



In the Windows 7 Network and Sharing Center I have the following settings for the "Home or Work" profile:

• Network discovery is turned on
• File and printer sharing is turned on
• Public folder sharing is turned on ("Turn on sharing so anyone with network access...")
• File sharing connections - Use 128-bit encryption to help protect...
• Password protected sharing is turned on.

It seems like everything is setup correctly, and yet when I right-click on the Windows 7 Public folder and go to the Sharing tab, it says the Public folder is "Not Shared"! Maybe I'm misunderstanding something? How can I fix this?

In order for the Public folder to be shared you must also have the C:Users folder shared as well. Everything is controlled from the C:Users folder so if that isn't set up to share then none of the folders inside of it will be shared.

That is about the only reason I can think of for this other than a third party A/V software may be blocking the connection.

Problem solved:

Right-click on the Public user folder > Properties > Sharing tab > Advanced sharing > Share this folder > select permissions.

Only the Public user is shared; other users are not shared.

Daddyman said:

Problem solved:

Right-click on the Public user folder > Properties > Sharing tab > Advanced sharing > Share this folder > select permissions.

Only the Public user is shared; other users are not shared.

I assumed you already performed the standard procedure for sharing any folder...

You can still enable sharing for the C:>Users folder but can easily lock down any of the folders which reside inside the Users folder by just right clicking a folder and choosing "share with" then choose Nobody.