Windows 7 has the ability to allow you to access your Media Library from a remote machine over the internet. To do this, you need to configure media sharing on both the machine to share the media and the machine to access the media.

What you will need:
• 2 computers connected to your home network and joined to your homegroup. (A desktop and laptop work great.)
• A Windows 7 Online ID Provider. At this time, only Windows Live is supported.
• A UPnP capable router or the ability to statically forward ports to your computer.
• For testing, you will need a computer not connected to your home network, but a member of your homegroup.

Configuring your home computer:
• Open Windows Media Player.
• Open Your Library (Press, the ALT key, choose View - Library).
• Click the down arrow beside the word Stream and choose Allow Internet access to my home media...




• Choose Allow Internet access to my home media again and follow the instructions for linking your Live ID to your media library using the Windows Live ID Sign-In Assistant.

Configuring your remote computer:
• While connected to your home network, verify the remote computer is a member of your homegroup.
• Verify that you can see your home machine under Other Libraries and are able to access and play music.
• Follow the instructions above to link your remote computer to the same Live ID as your home computer.
• Connect your computer to a network other than your home network.
• Right-Click on Other Libraries and choose Refresh Other Libraries.
• If you have successfully configured things, you should see your home computer.
• Note the world icon that I have highlighted on the left. That means you are connected over the internet.
• To verify, right click on a song and choose properties, it should start with dlna-playsingle://.




Troubleshooting:
• I had trouble with my Linksys WRT610N and the SPI firewall. With it enabled, media sharing would not work and I could never get my home machine to display in my remote media player. As soon as I disabled SPI Firewall, my home machine became immediately accessible.
• If you would prefer to forward ports manually rather than enable UPnP, follow this guide.

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by Matt3 edited by MSeng
last modified: 2009-12-24 08:54:50