For Battlefield, it's more than likely a firewalling issue. Connections are being rejected at one or even both ends. This may be caused by a firewall, or by security policy applied to the user's account preventing the game from creating the socket in the first place. Disabling the firewalls on each computer (or preferably, specifically configuring them to allow all types of traffic for the game. Third-party firewalls such as Outpost often have a "Learning Mode" that can be used to let the firewall build its own rules, very useful for games.) and running the game as admin should get around the problem. As for filesharing, Network Type should be set to private. Public will disable and block file sharing. In the Network and Sharing center, make sure File Sharing and Password-Protected File Sharing are enabled. Now share a folder. By default, the Everyone group has Read access. You can add the Authenticated Users group if you want and set their access to Full Control (or Co-Owner as it's called by its "friendly" name). This way, anyone can read the folder. If they supply a valid (to that computer) username and password, they can also add, change, or delete files. On the other computer, open Windows Explorer and type in \\ComputerName\ShareName in the address bar. It should prompt for a username and password. Since Everyone has Read access, it doesn't matter what you put in if you just want to grab a file. If you want to add or delete however you'll need to use the logon details for an account that actually exists on that machine. See this technet article for step-by-step with pictures: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx#EFAA