Homegroup is a Microsoft product that comes with Windows 7 and is turned on by default even though you don’t need it.
It is purely there to accomodate easier sharing between windows 7 machines on a local network but you can do that anyway using mapped drives between machines or to a NAS drive and/or replication.
It also uses up resources on your PC and I have found causes problems with wifi connected devices.
So, if like me you like to control things yourself then to get rid of homegroup:
- Goto to Network and Sharing Centre in control panel.
- Select Choose Homegroup and Sharing Options.
- If it states you are part of a Homegroup then select leave Homegroup.
You might also want to check your advanced sharing options at this point:
- Select Change Advanced Sharing settings…
- Expand the Home or Work option.
- Network discovery should be enabled.
- Set Printer sharing as desired.
- Turn off Public Folder sharing.
- You should turn on encryption.
- You should turn on password protection.
- Use User accounts and Passwords to connect.
So far ok but you will probably notice that you still get the Homegroup option listed in the Explorer app – to get rid of that you need to stop the Homegroup services:
- Got Administrative Tools under Control Panel
- Select Services.
- Find the Homegroup Listener and Homegroup Provider services.
- Stop the service and set to disabled so that they do not turn on again.
The homegroup option should now have disappeared from the Explorer window.
