[2][3] Some examples of shareable resources are computer programs, data, storage devices, and printers.
Samba can be used to create network shares which can be accessed, using SMB, from computers running Microsoft Windows.
Shared resource access can also be implemented with Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).
For example, the drive letter H: is typically used for the user home directory on a central file server.
Because of that, shared printer and file access is normally prohibited in firewalls from computers outside the local area network or enterprise Intranet.
[6] In home and small office networks, a decentralized approach is often used, where every user may make their local folders and printers available to others.
This approach is sometimes denoted a Workgroup or peer-to-peer network topology, since the same computer may be used as client as well as server.
Shared access involves automatic synchronization of folder information whenever a folder is changed on the server, and may provide server side file searching, while file transfer is a more rudimentary service.
Shared file access is based on server-side pushing of folder information, and is normally used over an "always on" Internet socket.
Modern operating systems often include a local cache of remote files, allowing offline access and synchronization when reconnected.