I want to access a folder on my home desktop PC over my local home network from all our various laptops at home (just to backup photos and share media files).
I tried simple Windows sharing, but one of the laptops is a work one, and is on a work Domain, so it can't be done that way.
Is there a way to do this?
Without buying a NAS or something?
All the PCs are connected to the one cable modem/router via Wifi or ethernet.
Have you tried Dropbox? This sounds like exactly what you are looking for.
Before doing this, I would check with your employers IT department to make sure they are aware of what you are trying to do. If you work for a large company with a well defined IT policy - it may not be worth attempting to do because you potentially could be leaking sensitive information regarding products/procedures that your company has in place and they will most likely tell you not to do this. If you work for a large organization, they might also have firewall rules in place to automatically block and/or monitor for this sort of network traffic. Monitoring a network for incoming/outgoing traffic that matches a pattern is dead simple to do, and if you go ahead and try to do this without asking first, you may find yourself unemployed in the near future.
If you work for a smaller company, or happen to be the IT guy for a small company you should be OK just be cautious about what you are sharing. If it is just photos and media files you should be OK. Try to keep any work related stuff out of the folder...
There are several file sharing protocols, and several implementations. One way of many to solve your problem is to install an ftp/sftp server on the PC that needs to share the files (e.g. FileZilla).
You can then use port forwarding rules on your router to make that server accessible from the internet, if you want/need to. By default, the router will prevent access to the ftp server from the internet, unless you manually change it.
