Help requested / needed to secure data on a public network

Hello there Seven Forums,

I used to work in a Home Network situation supported by a Router, but now I am on a Private Network in an office block that I share with many others.

I have a networked desktop PC called G79, and a networked Laptop called G81 that serves as my server for all of my data files, that I take with me when I am out and about.
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G81 has two Shares as seen from G79,

“George on G81 (\\G81) (G: )”, which is “Users\George” on G81,

and

“Outlook Files (\\G81\George on G81) (O: )”, which is “Users\George\Outlook files” on G81.
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G79 has a single Share as seen from G81,

“Backup of G81 George (\\G79) (B: )”, which is “Users\Backup of G81 George” on G79.
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So when I am in my office I work on my G79 desktop with a big screen and decent keyboard, and access G: for all my data files, which have been disentangled from the poxy “My Documents”, and I separately access my Outlook files using O:.

In terms of local backups, when I have finished on G79 I back up, from G81, my critical directories on G81 Users\George to the backup Share B: on G79, and I also back them up to an external USB drive.
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To make it all work I have had to set the Share User Permissions to “Everyone” for “Read/Write” in respect of all 3 Shares, and Codd alone knows who else on the network has access to all of my precious data. There’s some commercially very sensitive data there!
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I now have Window 7 Professional on both systems, and I want to create a User to add to the Share User Permissions instead of “Everyone”, so that I and only I can access the 3 Shares.
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Can you outline my route forward?

Yours, George

Hello Josh, thank you!

Consider that I will explore away with what you say when I have digested it. It's in my pipe, ready for smoking.....

What I have already digested is that I am "George" on both machines, but NOT password protected, and that somehow the overall system distinguishes George (G79) from George (G81), although I can't immediately remember where that shows up.

What I DON'T want to have to do is to enter my password every time the bell strikes.

I'll be back.......with how I get on.

Yours, George

We seem to be there, Josh!

I have taken all the required steps, removed the "Everyone" User Permission from the Shares, and now, having entered my password at boot time, all is sweetness and light! A Thousand thanks!

I didn't even have to set any "Remember my password" flag. My Shares are all immediately available as before, when I was accessing them via "Everyone".

In the Advanced settings for networking neck of the woods I set BOTH Home AND Public settings to needing a password.

I can across an interesting anachronism in the process, even in Windows 7;

"To avoid losing data in the future, ask George to make a password reset floppy disk."

I note that I now realise that I probably did not need up upgrade to Windows 7 Professional (2 @ £120 odd) to achieve this result, but then I needed to get to a stage on the back of that to ask a good question that you could answer. Win some, lose some!

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Now that I have got to what I think is a secure position, and being a jaundiced and world-weary type, I want to check things out from other PC's on the network.

I want to test my security by trying to break it form an external perspective. I will be able to test from the Receptionist's PC, or from that of one of the two (twin) owners of the business.

But first I need to know how to see other shares on the network from my own PC, before I can try to see my own three shares from somebody else's.

I previously had my PC's talking to each other when I was in the security of a purely and literal home network based on a router, and when I set them up in this new private network they seemed to find each other again automatically.

I found how to search for printers on my new / current network (and surprisingly, only found my own printer at its newly allocated IP address, and nobody else's), but how do I search the network for other people's systems and shares within those systems?

I emphasise that I want to do this NOT to break into other peoples' systems, but so as to ensure that others can't break into mine.

So how do I get one of my Windows 7 PCs to search the network for other systems and then shares?

Yours, with thanks again, George

Hello again Josh,

I'm really getting stuck into this now!

I've discovered a Heavenly download called "Advanced IP Scanner", which gives a bare network view of what is going on on the network; this has the signs for me of a benevolent rather than malicious bit of software.

As a result I can now see the full glory / horror of my unprotected shares, of historical origin, including a whole drive.

If I have created a Share via Properties, do you know how I can then remove the share?

Yours, George

Hello one last time Josh,

I'm there! What a clean situation.

No Homegroup

No Shared Printers (just the one printer accessed via IP Address from both PCs)

Public folder sharing turned off

Public printer sharing turned off

Password protection turned on

One password protected share on G79

Two Password protected shares on G81

And I'll check next week that NOBODY can now get at ANY of my files.

Very many thanks. I now just need to get my SCO Unix Server connected......

Yours, George