Browsing Windows 7 shares on Windows 98SE

Windows 8 must be in beta anytime soon but most businesses are still in Windows XP and some schools, believe it or not, have Windows 98 still. Connecting Windows XP and Windows 7 is easy but not with the older Windows Operating Systems. When you go to the address bar of Windows 98 and type

\\WIN7COMPUTER

a message box appears stating that a network error or somewhat similar.

In our situation, those few Windows 98 PCs still need to access things on my desktop or on to some other Windows 7 machines used by the other teachers. Don’t tell us to ditch Windows 98 or the really antique computers because, the school has a very tight budget, which could also be true to other schools.

But to remedy that, you have to know the share directory of the items in windows 7 then access it using the run command \\your_pc_name\folder. I for one shared a directory named YearIII for a specific class on my computer named MOTHER-PC. I can open that in Windows 98 by clicking start | Run then type

\\MOTHER-PC\YearIII

Windows 98 will automatically open an explorer window containing your shared files.

I know there are other solutions like setting up an FTP, but that is definitely cumbersome to fellow educators who are not Information Technology graduates and teach Computer subjects.