Windows 7 features: Libraries/HomeGroup

Speaking of Libraries, let's start with a small change in the naming of the default folder of the Windows 7 User Profile. The first thing we can notice is that Windows 7 has some changes in the default folder structure of the User Profile compared to Windows Vista:

Windows Vista: Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Videos, and Music

Windows 7: Personal Documents, Personal Downloads, Personal Pictures, Personal Videos, and Personal Music

These changes are a new feature of Windows Explorer for Windows 7 — Libraries:

Libraries Appear The left navigation bar of Windows Explorer in Windows 7;

Libraries consists of several "Library Locations" or "Personal" and "Public" user data folders;

When you click on any of the Libraries, all the files and folders belonging to the Libraries including “Personal” and “Public” will be displayed in a Windows Explorer window;

As shown below, click Document Library, included in the Personal Documents and Public Documents files All the files and folder contents in the folder are displayed. Among them, we can see that the EXAMPLE folder marked by Brandon is the content of Public Documents.

We can add a new Location to a Library by clicking the Location button in the top right corner. You can also create a custom Library by right-clicking Libraries in the left navigation bar of Windows Explorer to select “New”.

With a new network sharing feature of Windows 7 — HomeGroup , we can easily share the contents of Libraries to other computers on the home network. When creating a HomeGroup, we can choose which Libraries (and devices) to share:

Points to note when creating a HomeGroup:

To create a HomeGroup, you must have the computer's network Location type Change to “Home”;

Create a HomeGroup in each home network and the HomeGroup is encrypted by password;

If other computers in the home network have already created HomeGroup, then you see I will not be the above creation window but ask you to join the HomeGroup and which Libraries (and devices) to share;

Once a Windows 7 computer terminal has joined a HomeGroup, log in to the operating system. Each user can join the HomeGroup separately. When other users who have joined the HomeGroup log in to the computer, it does not affect the files shared by the HomeGroup users who are not logged in.

We have read and write access to the “Public” folder in the Libraries of other computer users in the HomeGroup, and their shared ”Personal” folder has read-only access.