when you connect your laptop to a new wi-fi network it's never enough for
Windows to just connect you and be done with it it always asks you this rather
cryptic question about whether you want your pc to be discoverable on the
network with a warning that you shouldn't do it if you're sitting at a
starbucks or something but many folks have never quite
understood what picking one option over the other one means and even more
frustrating is that if you click the wrong thing or click away from it it's
very difficult to find that prompt again
so basically what it comes down to is whether you want to use file and device
sharing for devices that would commonly be something like a printer on your local
network and lots of people never bother with this but it can be useful so let's
have a look at what answering that question yes or no actually does and how
to take advantage of the associated features if you tell Windows that you
don't want your computer to be discoverable it won't let any other
devices on the network see any files or devices that you're sharing either and
this is simply meant as another layer of protection if you're on a strange
network like one at an airport library
or a tinder date's apartment who you just met like an hour ago but if you
answer yes it will allow you to share those things on whatever network you're
connected to so how do you get that set up well unfortunately Windows doesn't
make it super obvious and the home group feature that was meant to make file
sharing a bit more straightforward was axed in Windows 10 because ironically
nobody used it the easiest way to share things locally is to create a folder
containing everything that you'd like your friends or roommates or whoever to
have access to and you can do this after creating and filling up the folder by
right-clicking on it then going give access to then selecting specific people
you'll see a menu pop up and in that drop-down box you can select everyone if
you just want to share that folder broadly with everyone on your local
network though it's very important to be sure to select
what permission level you'd like to give other users you can select read if you
don't want anyone modifying the files like if you're sharing a game cache or
something then all you need to do is click share
and you'll be given a path to send to the other users on your network just
have them type it into the file explorer address bar a
voila your files are now available network wide if instead you only want to
share with certain people you can make another user account on your computer
with a password and then type that username into the box in the sharing
window then you can give those credentials to whomever you want to have
access to the files and when they access the appropriate path they'll be asked to
enter them but what about sharing a printer this is actually a little more
straightforward even if the setting itself is buried a little bit
go to your main Windows 10 settings app select devices then printers and
scanners whichever printer is connected to your local pc should pop up you just
select it and click on manage now annoyingly you don't get a nice big
button that says share so instead you
need to click on printer properties and in the box that pops up you should see a
tab up top labeled sharing click it then check the box that says share this
printer give it a funny name or just anything that people on your
network will recognize then click ok now
as long as the host computer is turned on anyone on the network should be able
to add the printer from that same printers and scanners menu by clicking
the printer i want isn't listed then entering the path in this format or just
browsing for it now i know that there are more advanced and more secure ways
to share files and printers across the network which i'm sure our viewers will
be happy to discuss in the comments but hopefully this guide has demystified the
topic a bit and will help get you up and running as for me
i'm not gonna bother because i never learned to share as a kid and besides
printer ink is expensive
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