Sharing Files over the Internet - how?

I've been struggling with this for the past several hours, and I haven't had much luck looking for solutions online. I'd like to share my music and photo collection with my friends and family across the US. According to the help file, this should be possible with the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant. I was able to use it to get WMP streaming working OK for my mother's Windows Live account, but I don't want to just stream. I want to actually give them access to my files so they can copy it to their computers and use it.

The Help instructions don't seem very informative. I was able to successfully follow the instructions for setting up the Live account, linking the Live account, and granting access to files or folders to the Live user. But I don't know where to go from there. The Help instructions stop at the part where Person A grants access to Person B, but there's still the matter of explaining how Person B sees Person A's files. It wouldn't be in the Homegroup, since these aren't people on my LAN. And I can't extend a workgroup over the internet. And Live was specifically advertised as being able to address this scenario, but all of the instructions seem to imply that a shared Homegroup is required, which I think excludes computers outside the LAN. I certainly can't access my friends to fly to my house with their computers and join my Homegroup!

Has anybody gotten this to work? If so, could you show me how to do it?

Here are the steps I took:

1. Created Live ID
2. Installed Live ID assistant
3. Linked Live ID to my Win7 Account
4. Linked that same Live ID to my mom's Win7 Account on her computer
5. Tested WMP streaming. she was able to see my media as streams in WMP.
6. Right-clicked a folder
7. Clicked Sharing
8. Granted Read rights to the Live ID I created in step 1, which is linked to both my computer and my mother's computer
9. ???? I don't know what to do from here. My mom looked around for that folder to show up somewhere on her computer, but it never did. What now?

Thanks for your help in advance!

I haven't tried the Windows Live thing, but did you look at Opera Unite? It is pretty easy to use and setup too! And you get what you are looking for.

I have a solution for you...

does reqire google account which you can make one with ease

Gbridge Download

that is the easiest thing i have seen.

aem said:

How about using ftp through IIS?

You try to do ftp over IIS... that thing is so difficult.

got to open ports nd dpeending on how your network is set up...


i got a domain and everything...makes it alot easier, now the hard part. building a good site *lol*

or use team viewer its free for personal use TeamViewer Download

ha, so is this everybody's way of saying, "This feature doesn't work, use something else"?

sircvdii said:

ha, so is this everybody's way of saying, "This feature doesn't work, use something else"?

Just wanted to give you all an update. I researched all of your suggestions, and GBridge was virtually exactly what I was looking for! If given the option, I always prefer to use native functionality over a new install, but in this case it seemed clear that that Live functionality was little use, and perhaps doesn't do what it claimed to do, so GBridge was a great alternative way of sharing files and directories. Thanks for your help. And if anybody at any point does eventually figure out how to use Live, please post back here. I'm still very curious about how to use it.