How to share a folder or directory in Windows

Issue

How to share a folder or directory in Windows.

Answers

Creating a network share within Windows

Users can share any of their directories or drives by following the below steps. Note: Microsoft Windows does not allow for a single file to be shared, it must be the directory or drive that the file is within that is shared.

  1. Right-click the directory or drive you wish to share and click Properties. 
  2. Within the Properties window, click the Sharing tab.
  3. Select the option to share the folder and specify the name you wish the share to be. This will be the name the user will need to type in conjunction with the computer name to access the share. If you wish for this share to be accessible to as many users as possible, make sure not to have spaces in the share name.

Sharing a Microsoft Windows 95 and above computer through MS-DOS

Microsoft Windows users can also use the net share command to share a directory or drive on their computer. This can be done by following the below steps.

  1. Open a MS-DOS window by clicking Start, Run, and typing "command" and pressing enter.
  2. From the MS-DOS prompt, type a command similar to the below example. In the below example, "hope" is the name of the share that would be created, and "c:\hope\files" is the name of the directory we wish to share. Keep in mind that this example would provide full access to the folder.

    net share hope=c:\hope\files

Additional information