My problem is that I've long shared certain PC internal directories with other LAN PC's (XP and 7) and it works great. However, I needed more space and have just moved several of those directories to external storage (NexStar HX4 w/ USB 3.0 connection) and it appears to be working fine except for one gotcha.
Given the nature of those shared directories (media files), I often use the PC w/o any need of accessing them and so the external drives can be left shut down during Win7 Ultimate 64 bit boot. The problem is it appears that if Win7 doesn't see the shared directories at boot, then their sharing is canceled. That is, if I bring up the external drives after boot, sharing does not take place. However, if the drives are powered before boot, they are shared as desired, and I can even power them down and later bring them back online, and sharing survives.
Since Win7 is obviously able to preserve share declarations during post boot power down of the external drives (it doesn't cancel them, it suspends them until the drives return), surely there's a way to force that identical behavior if the drives are down at boot? Sure hope so anyway, this seems kind of Mickey Mouse the way it is!
Given the nature of those shared directories (media files), I often use the PC w/o any need of accessing them and so the external drives can be left shut down during Win7 Ultimate 64 bit boot. The problem is it appears that if Win7 doesn't see the shared directories at boot, then their sharing is canceled. That is, if I bring up the external drives after boot, sharing does not take place. However, if the drives are powered before boot, they are shared as desired, and I can even power them down and later bring them back online, and sharing survives.
Since Win7 is obviously able to preserve share declarations during post boot power down of the external drives (it doesn't cancel them, it suspends them until the drives return), surely there's a way to force that identical behavior if the drives are down at boot? Sure hope so anyway, this seems kind of Mickey Mouse the way it is!