Sharing Files While On Lockdown

May 4, 2007 8:33 AM

How do I share files between a corporate desktop (no admin rights, WinXP Pro) and personal laptop (WinXP Home), via a router.

I work at a large Detroit-based corporation and I have a locked down desktop and a personal laptop. They are on a router and (Success!) I can now get the Internets on both.

But how can I sync folders between the two machines? (I can set my laptop to any workgroup I want - but my desktop is on a domain and I can't change it. So they aren't talking... Tried to install Hamachi on corporate machine - no luck - need admin rights.)

It's just that there's a router between them... mustn't there be a way to share files!?

posted by parma to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I doubt you have the right to make any folders public, thus getting to any folders on the corporate box from another machine will be tough. If you have a cd burner you can burn files to cd, or perhaps you can use a USB drive. Some portable ones are 60 gig, and you could use briefcase to do the synching. If these don't work there is always senduit.com, although I would never use it for confidential material.
posted by caddis at 9:18 AM on May 4, 2007

Foldershare wil keep folders in sync, but I bet your IT people would hang you by your toenails if you use it. Web-based, so there's no install.
posted by cosmicbandito at 9:45 AM on May 4, 2007

You might consider using internet-based file storage you can get to from both machines. Try playing with something like gspace, for example.

Other than that, I would suggest sftp.
posted by nita at 9:47 AM on May 4, 2007

Does a USB key work only if you have admin rights?
posted by nevercalm at 9:50 AM on May 4, 2007

You'll need admin rights to install the USB drive if it hasnt been installed before by an admin.

The easiest way to test sharing is to create a new folder on the desktop, do a right-click, select properties and see if the sharing tab appears. If it does then try doing a simple share.

Go to a different computer and duoble click My Computer. Put in \\computername into the top and hit enter. If the share appears try connecting to it using the name and password you use to log in to that computer. (You can find the computer name of the computer you are sharing with from My Computer > Properties.)
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:03 AM on May 4, 2007

FTP shouldn't require any unusual privilege.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:06 AM on May 4, 2007

Steven has it spot on.

As long as your router allocates an IP address to your laptop via DHCP then you can run an ftp server on your home computer and use the ftp command line on your work computer to upload files to it.

I've done this for a few years and it worked like a charm.
posted by mr_silver at 10:31 AM on May 4, 2007

There is a program called BoxCloud (commercial) which is supposed to work on exactly this problem. It's free to use up to a certain amount of traffic.

I think the way it works is that it your client connects to their server, they act as a proxy server and let other clients (which you specify) download from your computer.
posted by cotterpin at 11:04 AM on May 4, 2007

You won't be able to share files from the corporate computer, but you can use FTP or Windows Networking to share files from your personal laptop, then access them from the corporate computer. You could use tools that don't require installation, such as robocopy, to synchronize local files with remote files.

I think your best bet is to create a share on your laptop. To connect to the share from the other machine, you'll have to provide local credentials - from the command line, that would look something like this:

net use * \\yourlaptop\yourshare * /user:yourlaptop\youruseraccount
posted by me & my monkey at 12:06 PM on May 4, 2007