One of the great Windows 7 features is called Homegroup; it allows you to easily share files with other computers running Windows 7. Homegroup makes sharing your music, pictures, documents, files and USB-connected printers a breeze. As soon as you network your computers, you will be prompted to set Network location, once you select Home Network, the Homegroup wizard will let you create your Homegroup in a matter of minutes.

The Homegroups are password protected for better security and you can select which ones of your libraries to share: Pictures, Music, Videos, or Documents; you can share USB printers as well. Simply make your selections, finish the Wizard and that’s that.

Joining already created Homegroup is also pretty straightforward – you just have to type in the Homegroup password and select the files that you wish to share.

After you have joined the Homegroup, you can add any file to the shared libraries and share them with other users; you can also make some or all of your files read-only, so other users can view them, but can’t make any changes. The Homegroup will also appear in your Windows Explorer left pane, so you can access all the shared items with a few mouse clicks.

However, the Homegroup feature works only if all the networked computers run Windows 7; if any of your machines is running Windows XP or Vista, you can still network them and share your files and documents, but the process isn’t as easy and requires more effort to set up.