Many NICs emulate the grandfather of all NICs the NE2000 in case you inherit some no-name NICs with no drivers. Once you install the driver you will go to the Windows control panel and select Networks which is organized as clients, adapters, protocols, services, and file and print sharing. You can share individual directories or entire drives for read-only access or access with a password. You can also specify printers to be shared. When directories, drives, or devices are shared you will see a hand symbol attached to the icon for that item.
Protocols are formats and procedures for transfer of data.
Many applications such as Microsoft Word will not open a file that is already open on someone else's computer. When investigating groupware applications make sure to understand if a server and specific server software is required or if the application can run on a peer network. Each computer on the LAN needs to have its own address. The addresses in the range 10.10.10.0 to 10.10.10.255 have been reserved for local networks so no site on the Internet will have addresses in this range. Therefore you should give each computer on your LAN a different address within this range such as 10.10.10.1, 10.10.10.2, etc.