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| Network Overview & Installation Network Overview Magic Folders has very robust network support. Not only can it protect files on your local computer, it can also protect files on any shared network drives you have mapped to local drives (as long as Magic Folders is installed on the machine hosting the shared drive). In addition it can hide your files even if your computer is the host computer and/or your local drives are shared with the network. IMPORTANT: Magic Folder handles networks differently than you might expect. To access a hidden folder a user must run Magic Folders on their computer using the password of the account that originally hid the folder. It doesn't matter whether the folder is on their computer or not. In addition, only one user can have access at a time to a hidden folder. This is all by design. This way you can use the files in your hidden folder without worrying if others on the network can see them. This also means that unhiding your hidden folders does NOT expose them to others on the network. Multiple users can share the same drive, at the same time, each with their own magic folders that are only visible to them. In other words, any user can make their magic folders visible for themselves while keeping them hidden from all other users. This also works for multiple users in XP. If you fast switch from one account to another, Magic Folders will switch too, keeping the previous user's magic folders hidden from the current user , even if the previous user's magic folders were visible at the time of the switch. Network installation There are really only two things you need to remember about network operations: 1. You won't be able to hide folders on a network drive unless Magic Folders is installed on the computer that hosts that drive. You will need to ask the Master Account holder (the person who installed Magic Folders on that computer) to create an account for you. You can then access your account using the password they give you and change your password to something only you know. If you do this, the Master Account will not be able to view your Private Files or know what they are - unless they uninstall, in which case all accounts' Private Folders become visible. Likewise, if one or more of your local drives are shared on the network then you (or whoever installed Magic Folders on your machine) can make accounts for others to use when accessing your drive(s). 2. In order to hide files on a network drive the drive must be mapped to a local drive. If the mapped local drive doesn't show up in Magic Folders then close Magic Folders and use Explorer or some other program to access the network drive and then restart Magic Folders. Sometimes Magic Folders won't see the mapped drive unless it's been used. |