Can I use Windows 7 as an audio server?

[BK7794]

I have two computers. A desktop that has all my media and a school laptop that really doesn't have much on it. However sometimes I want to go on my laptop and listen to music. Since it has just an SSD I don't really want to load it up too much. So I would like to access that music that is on my desktop.

I would like to know how I could possibly do it. Would I have to map a network drive? Or do the shared music folder? Also how secure is it? I would be doing all this under wireless internet that is secured using WPA2-AES I believe.

 

[Alejandro85]

Sure, you can. Using a computer like that is actually called a "file server". All you have to do is to create a file share on the server, and put all the music files there. Every computer with proper access can play directly from it. From other computers you can map a drive for ease of access or access the share directly.

About security, there aren't that many risks if you're using just from local network. On the server, give read, maybe write, permission to some local user there, put a good password on it and it will be asked when you try to connect first time. For local networks it works well (but if you want access over internet the history is different). WPA2-AES is quite strong encryption too. The weakest point is possibly the wifi itself, but as long as you have a good password on it you'll be fine.

 

[BK7794]

Sure, you can. Using a computer like that is actually called a "file server". All you have to do is to create a file share on the server, and put all the music files there. Every computer with proper access can play directly from it. From other computers you can map a drive for ease of access or access the share directly.

About security, there aren't that many risks if you're using just from local network. On the server, give read, maybe write, permission to some local user there, put a good password on it and it will be asked when you try to connect first time. For local networks it works well (but if you want access over internet the history is different). WPA2-AES is quite strong encryption too. The weakest point is possibly the wifi itself, but as long as you have a good password on it you'll be fine.

Excellent! Are there any good articles that could possibly guide me? What do you mean by a file share?

Yeah I would be using it over the router, I was thinking of using a random character generator to make the router password stronger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OaYMppCFY something like this?

 

[logicearth]

Using the Play To feature to stream media

 

[Alejandro85]

"File share" is a mechanism built-in into Windows to allow access to remote folders and files though a network, as it they were on the machine. Basically, on one computer you "share" a folder, and all others can see it on the network, and using a special path can access it as if those files were local. Mapping a drive letter is just assigning a normal letter access path to those remote folder instead of using the "rare" access path (so you use r:\something instead of \\server\folder\something).

A good article I just found about the topic:
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/
Even though it says for Windows XP, it's perfectly valid in Win7 (that system remained almost the same from Win95 up to Win8 in fact).
The video you say is another practical example of doing such a thing too.

Great idea of using a password generator too. A nice web site for that is RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service

 

[BK7794]

Using the Play To feature to stream media

I have seen that before, but I would like to possibly do more then that. I would like to learn as much as possible about networking especially because I am going to be getting a degree in computer networking.

"File share" is a mechanism built-in into Windows to allow access to remote folders and files though a network, as it they were on the machine. Basically, on one computer you "share" a folder, and all others can see it on the network, and using a special path can access it as if those files were local. Mapping a drive letter is just assigning a normal letter access path to those remote folder instead of using the "rare" access path (so you use r:\something instead of \\server\folder\something).

A good article I just found about the topic:
Windows XP Professional File Sharing
Even though it says for Windows XP, it's perfectly valid in Win7 (that system remained almost the same from Win95 up to Win8 in fact).
The video you say is another practical example of doing such a thing too.

Great idea of using a password generator too. A nice web site for that is RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service

I would have to look at the link. Thank you all for the information. I appreciate it! "

Also I might use this one, https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm