Windows 7 Features: Libraries/homegroup

When it comes to libraries, the little change in naming from the default folder in Windows 7 's user profile begins. The first thing we can notice is that Windows 7 has some changes in the default folder structure of 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 for a new feature of Windows Explorer for Windows 7-libraries:

Libraries appears in Windows 7 on the left navigation bar of Windows Explorer;

The libraries is composed of several "Library locations" or "Personal" and "Public" User data folders;

When clicking on any libraries, all files and folders belonging to the libraries, including "Personal" and "public", are displayed in a Windows Explorer window;

As shown in the following illustration, all files and folders included in the personal documents and Public Documents folder are displayed when you click on the document library. One of the things we can see is that the Brandon Example folder is public Documents.

We can add a new Location to a Library by clicking the Location button in the upper-right corner. You can also set up a custom Library by right-clicking libraries in the left navigation bar of Windows Explorer to select New.

With a new network share feature of Windows 7-homegroup, we can easily share libraries content with other computers on the home network. When creating homegroup, we can choose which libraries (and devices) to share:

Several points to note during the creation of HomeGroup:

To create a homegroup, you must change the computer's network Location type to "home";

A homegroup is created in each home network and the homegroup is encrypted by a password;

If other computers in your home network have already created homegroup, you will not see the creation window above but ask you to join the HomeGroup and which libraries (and devices) to share.

Once a Windows 7 computer terminal is added to a homegroup, each user who logs on to the operating system can join the homegroup separately. When other users who have joined the homegroup are logged on to the computer, it does not affect your browsing for files shared by 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 HomeGroup, and the "Personal" folder they share has read-only access.