Patent ID: 7567987

Claim:
A method for updating a shared file in a computer network including a group of communicating computing devices in a peer-to-peer network, the method comprising performing, at a first computing device, a file system operation on a shared file associated with a first file icon corresponding to the shared file displayed in a first shared space display area to generate an updated shared file; creating, at the first computing device, metadata associated with the updated shared file; directly propagating, by the first computing device to a second computing device that has permission, the metadata associated with the updated shared file; obtaining, by the second computing device, the metadata associated with the updated shared file; determining, by the second computing device, whether the updated shared file should be replicated on the second computing device, the determining based on a file replication setting of the second computing device, the file replication setting selected by a user of the second computing device, comprising: determining, by the second computing device, that the file replication setting indicates an on-demand basis and piecemeal downloading, by the second computing device from multiple computing devices of the group, the updated shared file; and determining, by the second computing device, that the file replication setting indicates automatic replication and automatically piecemeal downloading, by the second computing device from the multiple computing devices of the group, the updated shared file, wherein the multiple computing devices of the group from which the updated shared file is piecemeal downloaded are selected based on a closeness of each multiple computing device to the second computing device, the closeness based on of at least one of: IP address or least routing time; displaying a second file icon corresponding to the shared file in a second shared space display area of the second computing device indicating that the shared file has been updated; and displaying, by the second computing device, a third file icon corresponding to the shared file in the second shared space display area indicating that the shared file has not been updated when the updated shared file should not be replicated on the second computing device, wherein the third file icon provides an indication that an update to the shared file exists in the peer-to-peer network.