Windows Home Server 2011 Photo Viewing Only App - No Write Acess

Question

I currently use Windows Home Server 2011 to store photos that I have taken, and allow people to connect to my server through their laptops using Windows Explorer to view my photos. But this introduces problems because they have write access and could potentially delete or modify photos.

I would also like for them to have the ability to see my photos from their smartphones using an app, but I can't seem to find a simple app that would display the file directories, the photos, and that's it. I don't want them to have the ability to upload, modify, delete, or otherwise change anything on the server. Just read access.

What do I need to do to prevent their write access and is there an app that does what I would like? If not, what would be involved in writing an app (probably just for Android in the beginning) to allow viewing of the directories and photos without write access?

Answer 1

You have a few ways to approach this. The most standard way, would be to create a group on the Windows Home Server with Read only rights on the directories in question. Then create users in that group for who you would like to connect (or one generic user). Then they would only be able to view the files without changing/deleting.

As for an App. On Android "ES File Explorer" Allows connecting to network shares. I use this personally.