Windows 7 Shareing across multiple computers and users and HDD's

[Alucard]

Okay this is going to take some time to read so bare with me.

Okay, I have 6 computers in my house, 2 of which are laptops. I own 3 of the computers and one of the laptops. my mother the other laptop and my brother the other computer.

First off, I have made my older computer the server. In which my internet comes into and distributes it across my network firewalled and anti virused. (I use Iolo System Mechanic, Firewall and Antivirus) Then there is my Main computer, laptop and Touch Screen HP that I use myself and are the sole user of.
My mothers laptop has 3 users on it and my brothers computer just one.

The server, my brothers and my Main computer are running Windows 7 (32bit), my laptop is running Vista (32bit), my Touch Smart HP is running Vista (64bit) and my mothers laptop XP Pro (32bit).

Now, my server has a 1TB in it with my personal documents on it. (Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos and Downloads are the folders on it) Now I would like to be able to network them so that I can set the defalt location for theses folders on my Main computer to the folders in the 1TB on my server. And also set the defalts on my laptop and Touch Smart to the same folders on the 1TB. But at the same time not let any other computer have access to these folders. (Cos I have alot of guest computers connect to my network that i do not want to allow access to)

Also in the server is a 80GB which has been partitioned 4 times. each partition is for each other user in my network. the 3 users on my mothers laptop and the one on my brothers. I want to allow each of these users there own partiton and set the defalt of the doument folders (mentioned before) of these users to each partition respectivly. and make it so each user can only access there partition on the server HDD.

Now giving that windows 7 is a pain when it comes to setting security, will i need to use the admin account on the computer. (this was one of my other problemes that i ran into that was fixed by people on this site) So on my Main Computer i have my normal user and a admin user. Both are admin accounts but for some reason only the ADMIN account can make system wide changes to windows files and security settings. (so i found out from the people on this site)

Helping me solve this network nightmare would be a massive favour, for i have tried everything about networking that i know. I use to be able to do it with XP but now that i have multiple platforms and Different Bit processors it is proving more difficult.

Thanks, Alucard

 

[DataCabbitKSW]

Short of setting up a domain with some global policies, trying to get that installed and policed will be difficult. Especially making sure each user that connects to the systems will have their document folders defaulted to off the server, but still possibly work (in the case of a laptop) when they go elsewhere. It might be easier to have them set up to make shadow copies to those available volumes or set their machine's backup to back up to there. If they are desktops, not so much of a problem. Now the first problem is getting them all to talk to and see each other. I'm guessing you have that figured out so far, but you just need to set sharing security and policies on the individual shares? If the server can see the other computers, you can turn off simplified sharing and you can add an account from the remote computer to the local one as something that you can use for setting privileges/security. That is the basic of how I would go about it. Without seeing your exact setup, and knowing a few more specifics I couldn't really say. The different bit levels (32 vs. 64) shouldn't be an issue (barring sharing printers or scanners or the like) for just file sharing practices.
So for the TL: DR ---
1) Make sure they can all see each other first (same workgroup/domain/subnet/etc)
2) On server, make shares and add computer accts from other computers so auto-connection "Just Works"
3) Apply policies to shares and file structures to ensure the security is in place.
4) Miscellaneous poking on machines to move default locations for personal folders
5) ????
6) Profit (sorry I had to ^_^ )
If you don't get any better answers here, you can also try the official Windows 7 RC Support Forum located here
Windows 7 Category
It is supported by product specialists as well as engineers and support teams. They are usually pretty quick to respond.

 

[Alucard]

So on the server you want me to make a user account for all the people on the network?