Strategy for file sharing without Homegroup

Hi,
I am looking for some help please in tidying up our file system and shares.
We are a local community group using a machine SERVER (Win 7 Pro) and four PCs (PC1, PC2, PC3, PC4)
3 of these are Win 7 Pro and one Win 7 Home.
They have one user each PC1User, PC2User etc.
Currently things have been working pretty well, using a Homegroup, for several years
BUT I want to tighten the privileges a bit and remove the homegroup (largely in preparation to moving to Win10 or whatever comes next)

I am just an amateur at this but reading suggests I should create Group on the server then I can arrange rights for the Group and put users into the group.

My problem is just how do I add the users ? There is no Domain or anything.
It looks like it will only pick from 'Locations' = itself ie SERVER
I have tried things like \\PC1\PC1User or just PC1\PC1User but always get the message
'The following object is not from the domain listed in the Select Location dialog box'

Just how is the magic achieved with users on other machines ?

Thanks
JC

Homegroup has long since been removed by ms. It's still free to update to 10 given support for 7 ends soon it would be wise to update all PCs now so it's secure

samuria said:

Homegroup has long since been removed by ms. It's still free to update to 10 given support for 7 ends soon it would be wise to update all PCs now so it's secure

I am with you there. I just need the plan to ensure we are not relying on 'features' that are outmoded. Homegroup being the first.

Snick - thanks.
I am deducing, in a tenuous way, from the video links that you saying the way to go is to use 'Password protected sharing'
BUT this needs each user to be added to SERVER (or one new 'SharingUser') - they cant access via the already authenticated local user ?
And it looks like the same goes for Win 10.
I probably haven't noticed this need on my home network because, by accident, I am using the same user and password on all machines.

JC

If you have users on each PC with same name password windows passes that by default so it's simple