How to Enable File and Printer Sharing on Windows
Suppose you are running a small business where you have to share files across multiple computers or you have multiple devices in your home network, instead of carrying them in an external USB drive, wouldn’t it be way easier if you could access the same files from all your devices? Just like that, if you…
Enable-File-and-Printer-Sharing-on-Windows
Suppose you are running a small business where you have to share files across multiple computers or you have multiple devices in your home network, instead of carrying them in an external USB drive, wouldn’t it be way easier if you could access the same files from all your devices? Just like that, if you have to print files from multiple PC’s, do you really need multiple printers even though the printing tasks are not much? I don’t think so.
Windows comes with such an excellent productivity feature that can share your files and printers on any computer running Windows to the devices connected to the same LAN network. That’s what we are going to explain in this article on enabling file and printer sharing on Windows based systems.
Share Files and Printer on Windows
So, as mentioned, it is much easier sharing files across the network instead of copy-pasting them as well as disconnecting and reconnecting your printer whenever you have to print something from some devices. Here are the steps you should follow.
- Click the Start button.
- Click on the Control Panel link on the right.
- Click on Network and Internet.
- Click the Network and Sharing Center.
- Go to Change Advanced Sharing Settings on the left panel.
- Select the Turn on file and printer sharing under the File and printer sharing section on the page under the current profile.
Quick way: Just search Change Advanced Sharing Settings in the search area to directly jump to the advanced sharing settings.
Make sure that you choose the right profile (either Private or Home networks) to enable the printer and file sharing. Never enable it for a Public network. It might cause your data from being accessible for anyone connected to the same network as you do. So, be extremely cautious while changing these settings and make sure that you are choosing the right Private network to share your printers and files to. Also, be sure to disable file and printer sharing whenever you no longer want to share them.
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