Windows 7 官方用户手册(英文版)第三部分

40

41

Joining a homegroup is easy.

HomeGroup

Do you have multiple PCs in your home but only one printer? If you’re like most people, when you need to print a fi le from your laptop in the bedroom to the printer in the den, you probably e-mail the fi le from one PC to another or transfer it on a USB drive. And if you need to fi nd a fi le but don’t know which PC it’s stored on, it can take hours to search each one. HomeGroup, a new feature in Windows 7, makes it easy to share your fi les and print-ers with other Windows 7 PCs in your home. Connecting these PCs is a painless process because they identify each other automati-cally when they’re on the same network. If a homegroup is available on your home network, you can join it by entering your homegroup password. If no homegroup exists, you can easily create one.

After you’ve created your homegroup, accessing and sharing fi les among the various PCs—or other devices—in your home is like having all your data on a single hard disk drive. For example, you might have digital photos stored on a PC in your den. With HomeGroup, you can easily access those photos from a laptop or any other PC in the home-group from anywhere in your home. Similarly, if there’s a printer connected to a PC in your homegroup, the printer is set up automatically on PCs that join the homegroup. In addition, with HomeGroup, you can specify exactly what you want to share so you can choose to keep private things private.

HomeGroup also works for PCs that are connected to a work domain. When your domain-joined work PC is joined to a home-group, you automatically have access to your shared home printer and any content shared

with the homegroup. However, for a domain-joined PC, HomeGroup fi le sharing is turned off by default, and IT professionals can use Group Policy to stop employees from joining a homegroup. (See “Group Policy Improvements in the IT Professionals” section for more information.)

Homegroup gives you control over

what to share with other PCs.

Devices in a homegroup can

share fi les and printers.

Small businesses that do not have a server can also use HomeGroup to easily share documents and printers across multiple PCs running Windows 7.

42 43

The fi rst step in sharing information between PCs is to connect them to a network. Windows Connect Now is a feature of Windows 7 that makes it fast and easy to set up your home or offi ce network and connect additional PCs.

In the past, it’s been diffi cult to get a new network up and running. Now, all you have to do is turn on a router that has the Compatible with Windows 7 logo and click “Connect.” Windows Connect Now walks you through all the steps—including naming your network and setting security levels. Within minutes you will have a highly secure wireless network setup to protect your family and personal information.When it comes time to add new PCs to your new network, you don’t even have to remember the network security key. Windows 7 automatically detects your network and prompts you to use the Wi-Fi Protected Setup push button on your router . The router then applies your network and security settings

to any additional PCs you are connecting.

Windows Connect Now