Sharing external hard drive on a network (WINDOWS 7)

Question

I will like to share a 1TB hard drive to users on my network and create users, set permissions to files and folders. But i'm having a hard time accessing the users on the network. As it is i can only access users with accounts on my desktop. All my computers are part of the same workgroup.

From what i know, the process on windows 7 is to Right Click the on the drive > Share with (Choose Advanced sharing) > Click Advanced Sharing > Click Permissions > Under Group or user names, Click Add > then add users from the screen that appears.

When i click on the Locations button (to find users on the network) the location that shows up is only my computer and as such i can only work with user accounts on my computer alone. How do i access the users on my network so i can share documents with them and create permissions?.

Answer 1

If you do not have a domain controller on your network then you may want to create local accounts on the machine with the external and have the other computers map to the drive using the "Connect using different Credentials" option.

This may read for Windows 2000 but it is still true for Windows 7; https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/301281

Answer 2

You would have to add the user accounts from the other computers to your local computer. If there is still problems, add passwords to the accounts on the other PC's and make sure you have the same passwords entered for their accounts on your PC.