Hello I'm planning to set up a home network that includes my desktop, my work laptop, home laptop and printer. I've been reading around this topic and how to go about it and I have come across the issue of mapping drives and/or folders. Just out of interest what is the difference between the two and which would be more appropriate for what I want to achieve as set out below? My main purpose for setting up a home network via my wireless router is so that the different computers can access folders/files that are on my desktop and I can print off documents that are currently on my laptops without having to put them on a USB then onto my desktop and then print them off. All the computers are already connected to the internet via my router. Than you in advance for your help P.S. All of the computers listed above use Windows XP SP 3 as their O/S1 person needs an answerI do too

A computer can share one of its drives (or folders), which lets other computers access it over the network. Mapping a network drive assigns a local drive letter to a shared drive that's stored on another computer. For example, assume that: The computer named Desktop shares a folder named Documents. A user on the computer named Laptop wants to access the folder. That Laptop user can map a network drive to \\Desktop\Documents, which assigns it a drive letter (Z:, for example) on Laptop. Programs on Laptop can then access the shared folder as if it's a local folder on the same computer.Boulder Computer Maven Microsoft Most Valuable Professional