How to limit shares to specific machines in Windows 7 Home Premium

[tomamitai]

I have a guest in my house. I would like to allow them access to the internet through my home network, but prevent them from accessing files on my machines, without preventing my machines from sharing with each other. Can I do this in Windows 7 Home Premium? Advanced sharing options just seem to allow either everyone to access a folder, or nobody. I can't find out how to limit access to just users from a specific machine.

 

[kegobeer]

What router do you have? Quite a few routers have a guest mode that allows people to access the internet without being on the same SSID as you, thereby preventing access to your files and computers.

 

[tomamitai]

The guest is using a wired connection.

 

[chev65]

I have a guest in my house. I would like to allow them access to the internet through my home network, but prevent them from accessing files on my machines, without preventing my machines from sharing with each other. Can I do this in Windows 7 Home Premium? Advanced sharing options just seem to allow either everyone to access a folder, or nobody. I can't find out how to limit access to just users from a specific machine.

There aren't really any practical ways of doing this. You can set up a guest connection outside the network using the router but with my router it only works with a wireless connection.

And if anyone would like to show us all how to do this I'm all ears. :sarc:

 

[kegobeer]

Buy a cheap wired router, put it on a different subnet, and connect it to the main router and also to the guest computer. Turn off NAT filtering and security stuff, and have it point to the main router gateway. It'll have internet access but won't be able to access your computers.

 

[chev65]

Buy a cheap wired router, put it on a different subnet, and connect it to the main router and also to the guest computer. Turn off NAT filtering and security stuff, and have it point to the main router gateway. It'll have internet access but won't be able to access your computers.

I like that thinking outside the box LOL. Of course I was thinking of a way to do this within Windows.

 

[kegobeer]

Buy a cheap wired router, put it on a different subnet, and connect it to the main router and also to the guest computer. Turn off NAT filtering and security stuff, and have it point to the main router gateway. It'll have internet access but won't be able to access your computers.

I like that thinking outside the box LOL. Of course I was thinking of a way to do this within Windows.

Within windows - turn off guest accounts, and enforce password protected sharing, creating identical users/passwords on each machine. Then, use granular security settings on folders that need to be shared and do not share any other files/folders. Avoid using the everyone group and instead use the authenticated group.

It's time consuming if one has never done it before, but it is the closest you can get without a domain controller.