Create New HomeGroup

[Perrako]

Hey guys,
I have a laptop and desktop running Windows 7. I'm on a college campus, and I just want to have my two computers connected through a homegroup or something functionally equivalent. However, someone else in my dormitory's wireless network has set up a homegroup already. I have no interest in joining his; I'd like to make my own for just my two computers. I can't see any way to make another one, however. Even better, if there were a way to make this connection persist across different networks, so I could always access files between the two, that'd be awesome. Any thoughts?

 

[Darryl Licht]

First off, you need to set the network location to Home on both PC's in the Network and Sharing Center. Then create a Homegroup, print or write down the generated password and make the 2nd PC join that Homegroup.

Also, while the HomeGroup feature is available in all editions of Windows 7. But in Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic, you can only join a homegroup, but you can’t create one.

 

[tony1234]

Hey Darryl, when someone else on my wireless network has created a home group, my only option appears to be to join that home group. Like Perrako, I have no interested in joining my housemate's home group. I want my own. Is it possible to have two or more home groups on one network? I don't see an option to create one (I'm using W7 Home Premium).

Thanks,
Tony

 

[Barman58]

Have you tried to set up the homegroup Away from the influence of the existing homegroup?

It may be that even this will not work if you are on the same sub-net as the existing group, (sharing the same router)

your best route would likely be to set up a personal workgroup, and using the full old type windows networking, you would still be able to see any other workgroups, but password protection and sharing permissions would control access.

homegroup is designed to network Windows 7 systems without the learning curve of "real" networking, this does mean that it is rather inflexible