Windows Home Server - Shared Folders/Remote Access

With the Shared Folders functionality, there are shared folders created on the server. You can easily access these on your LAN from the Desktop shortcut "Shared Folders" that is created on your desktop.  There are Public folders for Music, Videos, Documents, Software, Software and Users.  The User's folder contains the personal folders for each user that has an account on the Windows Home Server.  You can, through the Windows Home Server Console, set which users do and do not have Remote Access and what folders they can and cannot access.  For access from outside your home LAN a handy web interface is provided.  If you're behind a hardware firewall/router, you'll need to forward ports 443 and 4125 to the Windows Home Server machine. Then if you know your router's IP address or you have domain name, you can simply type https://<your ip address or domain name> to access the server remotely.

For those user's who you do give Remote Access, they can download and upload files to the shared folders they have access to.  You can also set permissions to "read-only" (can't change anything) or "read-write" (can change, overwrite and delete files) on a per-user basis.  Remote access is as simple as using your web browser to connect to your home server.  You will need to forward a couple of ports in your router's firewall to the server, but that's pretty easy with most routers.

From here, you can access all the shared folders that you have access to.  The Administrator can restrict what you can and cannot access.

Remote PC Access

If you have PC's on your home LAN that support the Remote Desktop Protocol as a "host", simply go to the Computers tab and you can access those machines from there.  Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Business and Ultimate support access via Remote Desktop.