New
#1
Allow only devices that have joined a Homegroup to access shared drive
What I'm trying to do doesn't sound complicated but I'm really stumped.
I want to set up a home network (a desktop and other tablets/laptops) and set up some of the drives on the Desktop PC (NOT individual folders) as shared which can then be accessed only by my family's tablets/laptops. However, I don't want other people's devices (who I allow access to my router for internet access) to have access to these folders.
I thought I could use a Homegroup and use permissions to allow access to the shared drives for only the devices that have joined the Homegroup with the appropriate password.
So I set up a Homegroup and right clicked on the drive on the desktop PC and selected Advanced Sharing. I then set up sharing with permissions assigned only to the user named "HomeGroupUsers$" (which sounded logical). But, when I use a laptop which has joined the Homegroup then I get access denied when trying to open up the shared drive.
I then changed the permissions to use the group "HomeUsers" and I could then successfully access the shared drive from the laptop. However, when I connected a tablet to the router which had NOT joined the homegroup, I could still access the shared drive which is not what I want.
Is the use of Homegroup the right mechanism for what I'm trying to do? If it is, then what am I doing wrong?