office computer network

[jane zhang]

Hi,
I am helping a friend with his company computer system. Their computer's network setup is as follows:

1. 7 window xp workstations.
2. the computers connect to the internet via hub, ADSL router and phone line to the internet.
3. the computer can see each other via network neighbourhood's workgroup. but can not access each other's disk space.

Any advice to improve the security?
how can I access another computer's disk through my own computer? ( \\hostname\c$).

Thanks,

Jane

[Joel Belizario]

Hi Jane,

Have you considered a server-client model for the network? Sharing data among 7 workstations can get messy... Have a look at Windows Small Business Server, that may or may not be the way to go depending on the applications in use and overall requirements.

Have a look at this article:

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/windowsnetworking/tp/winfilesharing.htm

What security concerns do you have?

[Jorge Pinto Leite]

Hi Jane

To allow computers to access each other disk, you should make a new sharing in each one of them.

My advice is not to share directly C$ as this share is for administrative purposes. You should create a new sharing (do you really want to share full disk, or just part of it?).

To improve security you can make smaller shares and in security tab give the permissions you want for users in each folder.

[Hugo Tigre]

hi jane

Like it has already been said here, sharing data over users computers can get messy, you'll have less control of what's going on the network.

Shared data sould be centralized on a server, even if you have a simple workgroup network, this way you'll have things simplified, less work, and it's easier to make backups of important data.

Either way you should create shares to access data, and never give users access to c$ directly.

To simplify things for users, you can create mappings of the shares on the users computers.

hope this helps,
hugo tigre