Windows Tools, Help & Guides

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Being a multi-computer household, we have chosen one computer to be the dedicated multi-media computer. This is where we store all our music, videos, images etc. On occasion you want to access some of this media, sitting at another computer.  If you are at home, using  Homegroup in Windows 7 is the ultimate solution (see this article by Rich).

But, What if, you are not at home?

The good news is that you can stream the music and videos from your home computer to your laptop over the Internet.

Here are the steps to do so on each of the computers:

1. Open Windows Media Player, click the Stream tab, and select Allow Internet Access to Home Media …
   
   
2. First, if you haven’t already, you need to link an online ID to your PC.

   

3. In the dialog box, click: “Link an Online ID”.

   
   Select the ID provider (Most common ID provider is Windows Live).

4. Enter your user name and password.
5. Click OK when the dialog box shows the ID association.
6. Back in the Allow Internet Access dialogue window, click “Allow Internet Access to Home Media”
7. WMP will now ask for UAC approval. After this, In the left pane of the WMP on your laptop, you’ll see the library for the home computer and you can select items from it.

Remember that you have to repeat the steps on the laptop after setting it up on the home computer. Also note that if a computer is connected to a domain, it can’t stream media over the Internet.

About Thomas

Computer geek from the age of 7, which amounts to 30 years of computer experience. From the early days (when every computer company had their own OS) of DOS, Windows 1.0 through Seven...

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