And it's not going well.

Trying to make media available from my HP W7 x64 Pro computer to the other computers in the house.
I'd like to use password protected sharing.  If I'm on one of the other computers in the house I get a dialog box asking for a domain and a password I don't remember.
I'm not sure if I setup a password for my media computer.

I need to find the place in my media computer to find the proper domain name and set a password.
I've spent the last two hours on the web looking for a solution.  All I got was a headache.

Someone here has the answer.  Thanks in advance.

I think you can just share the folder then on the other computers just type in the ip address of your computer with the shared folder and you can directly access it.

By share I mean just right click the folder and go under the shared option.

You sure you're not ready to make the jump to a NAS like a QNAP or Synology?

Had to look up those terms.
In theory yes.
Financially no.

Problem is partially solved.  Working on the rest of it.

Instead of just using a shared folder I would install Plex server on the computer. It's much easier to manage and view from say a roku on your tv.

a 2 bay synology is what you want. 

Installing Plex now.  
According to Plex's site I should be able to stream to my other laptop and my phone.
Bonus points if I can stream to the dedicated antique laptop in the shop.

Tangent for shop/garage laptops:

You might already do this but I have a garage laptop for schematics, how-to videos, parts lists, etc and to help keep it clean I wrap a sheet of saran wrap over the keyboard.

My garage laptop is a 2005 vintage MSI.
I use it for music.  Not much else.
It refuses to die so it's a backup to the backup.

Installed Plex and upgraded to Plex Pass.
Once I figured it out I made most of my music library available to my phone.
No video as of yet.
I turn the phone on airplane mode, use my wifi and listen on my property.
That's pretty much what I need right now.
I probably won't use it over the phone network until I know how much data it sucks.

UPDATE:  Plex uses about 100mb an hour give or take a few mb.
Not something I'd use over Verizon's network.  Sucks too much data too fast.
Over a wifi network it works great.