Information
HomeGroup makes it easy to share pictures, music, documents, videos, and printers with other people on your home network. This will show you how to create a homegroup in Windows 7.
1. Make sure to
synchronize the clocks on all computers that will be part of the home network so that they are showing the correct date and time. If the clocks are not synchronized, the HomeGroup feature will not work.
2. Make sure that the computer is set to have a
home network location type. You will not be able to create a homegroup from any other type of network locations.
3. If you are using a wireless network through a wireless router, then check to make sure that say for example
WLAN Partition (D-Link) or
Enable Wireless Isolation (Netgear) are unchecked in the router's wireless settings. When it is enabled (checked), it prevents wireless devices from being able to see and communicate with each other. (see screenshots below)
NOTE: The screenshots below are from a D-Link DIR-855 (left) and Netgear WNDR3800 (right) wireless router. You will need to look at your router's manual for how with it.
4. Open the
Control Panel (icons view), and click on the
Network and Sharing Center icon.
A) Click on the
Change adapter settings link. (see screenshot below)
B) Right click on your network connection adapter, and click on
Properties. If prompted by
UAC, then click on
Yes. Make sure that the items below are checked, and click on
OK. (see screenshot below)
Note
Sometimes the registry setting does not get updated even though you enable IPv6 via the GUI interface here. You can check the setting in the registry (regedit) by going to the key location below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters
In the right pane, right-click on
DisabledComponents and select
Modify. Make sure the value is set to
0.
- File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
- Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)
- Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
C) Click on the back arrow button (left arrow) in
Network Connections to return to the
Network and Sharing Center. (see screenshot above)
D) Click on the
Change advanced sharing settings link. (see screenshot below)
E) Make sure that the
Home or Work (current profile) settings for
network discovery,
file sharing, and
homegroup connections are set as they are below for the ones pointed out with the red arrows, then click on
Save changes. If prompted by
UAC, then click on
Yes. (see screenshot below)
5. In the
Network and Sharing Center, click on the
Choose homegroup and sharing options link. (see screenshot below)
6. Click on the
Create a homegroup button. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: If a homegroup already exists (already created) on your home network, then Windows 7 will ask if you would like to Join Now instead of creating a new one.
7. Select (check) what
libraries and
printers that you want to share from this computer with any other computer that joins this homegroup, then click on
Next. (see screenshot below)
8. Write down and/or print this
homegroup password. You will need to have and use this password to
join a computer to this homegroup. Click on
Finish. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: The password is case sensitive, so it will need to be typed exactly as it appears here when used to join a computer to the homegroup.
9. Close the HomeGroup window. (see screenshot below)
10. You will now need to
add other computers to the homegroup by joining them so that you can access shared libraries and printers between them.
That's it,