Making A Folder Public?

Is it possible to make a specific folder in my Win7 installation public? I already have network sharing set-up between my Desktop and my Laptop on my network, but, at the moment, if I want to share something, I have to move it to the Public folder, use it, then delete it from there so that I don't have multiple copies of stuff floating around everywhere. However, I don't want to keep everything on my Window's drive, which means I can't simply move whatever I might be sharing to the Public folder to be used between my Laptop and my Desktop. I'm hoping there's a solution where I can simply share folders that I choose across the network. What I've Tried I've right-clicked on a folder and opened the properties, clicking on the "Sharing" tab. I then went to "Advanced Sharing" and checked off "Share this folder" with the Share name being the folder name, and the path was, by default, set to \ComputerNameFolder. This made it possible for me to see the folder on my Laptop (I shared one from my Desktop, essentially I'm trying to make my Laptop a satellite for my Desktop, which I'll explain at the end) but when I try opening the folder, my Laptop gets the following error message: "\ComputerNameFolder is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this sever to find out if you have access permissions. Access is denied". Great. So I go back and click on "Share" in my folder properties, but the only users listed are the ones found on my computer, not over the network. So I click on the "I'm having trouble sharing" link, which brings up the help. The help mentions "Share with" on the right-click shell menu, so I try that and select Homegroup (Read/Write). Now I'm thinking I've finally done it, since I've now specifically specified that this is what I'm trying to do and granted that specific permission. Back on my Laptop I'm looking at \ComputerName and I see the folder there still, I try to open it and, voila, same error message. Now I'm stumped. Why Am I Doing This? I'm doing this mostly because my Desktop is the superior computer. It has better storage, etc... (as it should!) so it's the main computer. My Laptop runs Vista (important to mention!) and I like the fact that some of my programs run independently of the main computer, as it lets me do certain things on various websites simultaneously (nothing fishy mind you), which is great. However, for other things, I would like to just run my Laptop as if it was an extension of my Desktop. For instance, I record videos. I'd like to be able to record them on my Laptop if I so choose, but I want them to be recorded right on my Desktop, since it has the better storage. I also like to write, but I don't want multiple versions of stuff on various computers, though I do want the file on my computer somewhere, as opposed to being stored in the cloud. However, I like the freedom of being able to write wherever I might have my computer on the network, so, once again, I'd like to work directly off of the files from my Desktop. I play a text-based game in which I manage a lot of .txt files with stuff I use for the game, same deal as the writing, I might be playing the game on my Laptop instead of my Desktop and I might need to edit or add to those files, but I don't want to be trying to maintain two different folders of those files. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture of what I'm looking for.