Homegroups on Windows 7I have been reading about the new features of Windows 7 and one that looks attractive is the concept of Homegroups. This is an extension of the home networking facility which consolidates the files of all participating machines and users into common libraries. So, for instance, if you have multiple PCs on your network, each with multiple users then all their music folders are consolidated into one music library while the files themselves remain on the owner’s account. This is an extension of the “My Music” and “Shared Music” across multiple machines and accounts in a more transparent way. This has been available for a long time in Windows Media Player but the mechanism has been moved back into the O/S and extended to other libraries such as videos and pictures. There are not a lot of details, but I presume that this is for read only and write always goes local. The libraries involved are Music, Pictures, Videos and Documents and the sharing also includes printers. What it fails to mention, of course, is that it only works when the relevant machines are switched on!
An article I was reading on Windows Secrets, which is a lot more informative, suggests that Documents are handled differently from others. It says that “Homegroup setup makes sharing the Documents Library optional” but I can’t see why that should be given special treatment. Surely your Gangsta Rap collection and the pictures from your naughty weekend in Brighton could be just as sensitive?
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