lowyhong: I would like to watch a bunch of movies on my netbook. However, they're downloaded on to my desktop. My netbook and desktop, however, are linked to the same router, so they're on the same network I believe. Is there any way I can initiate some kind of LAN to transfer the movies from my desktop to laptop in a jiffy?
Okay, time to put my network education to work. I’m assuming you’re using XP, Vista & 7 are essentially the same but a slightly different way of getting to the panels you need
Server Machine Right click on the folder that holds your videos/music/images or whatever and select Sharing & Security. In the panel that shows up, tick “share this folder on the network”, give it a name and OK to close it.
Hold the Windows key and hit R to open the run dialogue, type cmd and hit enter to bring up the command prompt. Type IPCONFIG and take note of the IP Address.
Netbook Open the command prompt by following the steps above. Type:
net use z: \\<server ip address>\<share folder name>
and hit enter.
That will create a network drive Z (Since physical drives theoretically start from A and go up, I usually recommend networked ones start from Z and go down) that will allow you access to the files on the server.
When it comes to videos, it'd probably be best to copy them to your netbook if you have the space, playback over the network can be a bit flakey, especially if you're on wireless. If you can't copy, start to play the vid and then pause it for a minute to let it buffer