How to create your own Windows file sharing server to share large files
Posted on January 16, 2008 at 7:55 am
Have you ever wanted to share large music, video, or data files with friends, but didn’t know how to setup a FTP server? If you want to quickly share files with a more than one person, you either have to setup an FTP server and give people access or you have to use online services like YouSendIt that allow you to upload multiple files and send them to multiple people.
However, the problem with sharing files using an FTP server is that you either have to purchase space on a third party server and set it up yourself, which requires some technical know-how or you need to set it up on your own computer, which takes even more knowledge!
The problem with services like YouSendIt is that it’s free, but with restrictions! You can only send files that are up to 100MB in size and you have a 1GB monthly download limit for all of your files. And each file can only be downloaded a maximum of 100 times! So that’s not fun if you want to be able to share tons of files with anyone at anytime!
HFS (HTTP File Server) is a cool free open-source application that you can use to send and receive files for free! It allows you to run your computer as a file server, but not just for your local network. It has a web interface that lets you share files with anyone!
Since it converts your computer into a file server, you don’t have to upload files to any third party servers. It’s highly customizable and allows you to create accounts, view current connections to your files, close/end connections, control bandwidth usage, and lots more! It’s like a Windows Server File server except that it’s free and works over the web!
The cool thing is how easy it is to use! It’s simply one EXE file that you just run, no need to install anything on your computer! Next just drag and drop the files you want to share into HFS and you’re up and running your own file server.
All connections can be monitored via a tray icon and you have full control over all connections. You can specify the IP address and port number that you want the file server to run on.
It has a ton of options that you can configure, including the HTML template code, so you can customize the look and feel of your file server.
![http file server[8]](http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/http-file-server8.png)
You can share just about anything on your computer and access the files remotely from any other computer connected to the Internet. When accessing from outside of your local network, you’ll need to make sure that you know your Public IP address and configure your router to forward the listening port of HFS to the computer where HFS is running.
You can learn about forwarding ports on your router by going to http://www.portforward.com/. As far as I know, HFS supports all Http browsers. This includes Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Maxthon, Netcaptor, Firefox and Safari.
You can set security on the files you are sharing by right-clicking on a file and choosing Set User/Pass. You can assign a user name and password so that whenever someone tries to download it, they’ll have to enter in the credentials.
Also, you can download only one file at a time, though in future versions they will support downloading of entire folders or multiple files at once.
Overall, it’s a great free file sharing program that is super easy to setup and that works really well! Give it a shot if you’ve been looking for a free file sharing program! Remember, though, you have to keep your computer on in order for anyone to access the files (the only downside). Enjoy! Source BrownBaron
[tags]share files, file sharing, free file sharing, how to share files, file sharing server, file server, http file sharing, windows file sharing, file sharing programs, share files online, sharing files[/tags]
» Filed Under Free Software Downloads
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Comments
11 Responses to “How to create your own Windows file sharing server to share large files”
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How to setup an FTP server in Windows using IIS Says:
[...] I had written a post on how to turn your computer into a Windows file sharing server using a program called HFS. If you’re looking for a quick way to share the files on your [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 6:58 am
This is great for sharing files in our college .
Ok, it is just like an ftp server, but in http.
“the problem with sharing files using an FTP server is that you either have to purchase space on a third party server and set it up yourself,…”
You don’t need to do that. You can configure easily an ftp server on your Wxp with easy-to-use programs…
There is no advantage in using this.
Damian, that would be great if you could list out a couple of those programs for us. I’ve personally always found it takes a good amount of setup to get an FTP server running on my local computer, especially when you have to deal with opening ports in your firewall, etc. Thanks
actually i already use this hfs. but now i got a problem. last time i am using direct connection to internet. but now i’m in a small network at my house. i use two pc and using a network to connect to the internet. but i cannot use hfs. i give my internet ip to my internet friend and ask him to connect to my hfs use my internet ip from his house. so many times we was tried to connect but still failed. please help me.
I’ve used xerver (http://www.javascript.nu/xerver/) for years. It does ftp and http and even supports php, so you can create some nice looking programs. Simple little javascript webserver.
Another option is to download Wamp2 server. It’s a complete php, apache, web server solution all in one package. I run it at work for my peers. It’s surprisingly easy to setup and lets you run complete full featured websites.
I’m going to try this though.. looks pretty cool. For FTP, I used BulletProof FTP (http://www.bpftp.com/) some too. It’s not free.. but lots of free versions on torrent sites, so actually it is.
Wamp2 also delivers MySQL in the same package.
Thank you so much for writing about this! I’m glad I found your site. I tried to setup and FTP server using IIS, but that was a diaster.
HTTP File Server is absolutely great. I was able to set it up in a few hours and can now share large files with all my clients securely. Sweet!
Dear all,
Please consider using linux. Itz made for networks. You can setup an ftp server, which is much easier to setup on linux than on windows
Manohar, you are a dumbass. This is a program for a simple, quick, lightweight file server. Why would someone with a linux server even be here?
OH MY GOSH! This little program was exactly what I needed for our intranet. I was dreading having to set up PHP/Apache or IIS and trolling the internet finding scripts just to reliably display the contents of some of our shared directories on our LAN. It seemed like so much work for something so simple. HFS is amazing! Thank you for posting this information.