Sharing and Mapping via the Internet

Once you know on how to share and map a drive on a local Network and on how to connect to the Internet, you can also share and map via the Internet.

On the system making the disk available: "Sharing":

	Make sure, that in the Network "File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks" is installed.
	Verify in the properties of the TCP/IP properties, that TCP/IP has a Binding to the "File and Print Sharing" (this is usually NOT done to prevent unauthorized access to your disk)
	On the disk/directory, to which you like to give access, call up the context menu (right-mouse click) and select : "Sharing"
	Select the radio button :"Shared as..", define your "Access Type", but since you open up your system to EVERYBODY on the Internet, it is now a MUST to define a Password !
	Confirm the password (Windows like to make sure, you know it yourself and did NOT make a typing mistake)
	Your drive is ready !

There is only one more item to overcome, to allow others on the Internet to get to your disk:
They need to know your IP-address !
While companies have often an Internet connection with a fixed IP-address, most home-users dial into the Internet and get during the connection the IP-address assigned via DHCP.
So, once you have connected, find out your IP-address using "winipcfg":

Inform your friend (the user of the system trying to connect to your disk) about your IP-address (warning: it is most probably different each time you dial-in/connect to the Internet)

On the system accessing the disk:
in preparation (before connecting to the Internet):

Find/create your LMHOSTS-file. Windows95 TCP/IP installation puts a sample-file as "LMHOSTS.SAM" in your Windows-directory, rename (or better) copy it to LMHOSTS.

Once the system sharing its disk has connected to the Internet and you have found out the IP-address of that system, enter it with the name of that computer into "LMHOSTS" together with the Computer-name of the system:
(do NOT use the file HOSTS: HOSTS is used for Internet utilities, like PING, while LMHOSTS is used by Microsoft Network software for NetBIOS-name resolution):

add at the end of the file: - the IP-address, some blanks, the Computer-name - you MUST press the RETURN-key at the end of the line !

make now the connection to the Internet:

and test with the TCP/IP-utility PING, that the system sharing its disk is also connected to the Internet:


Use now Find / Computer (from your Windows Start-Menu) to locate on the network the computer, defining the Computer-name (using "LMHOSTS", your system is now able to find the IP-address and to contact via the Internet the other system):

If the other system is NOT found, you need to map the drive manually.
If the computer is found, double-click on it to display its shared resources:

You should now see that shared disk-drive. call the context menu (right-mouse button) and select "Map Network-drive"

The system shows the URL of the drive. Select/accept the drive-character (in this example: F:) and OK to continue:

Since the drive is Password protected, you will now be prompted to enter the password.

	If you know already the name of the shared disk or "Find"/"Computer" did not locate the sytem, you need to map manually: make on "Network Neighborhood" a right-click to call up the context menu and select here:"Map Network drive"
	Now, you need to enter yourself the URL of the shared disk.

But the result is the same: You have now a network drive, accessing a disk via the Internet:



It is a little slow, if you are using modems, but it is a fully working network drive !