How to play videos stored on a shared network folder with Windows 10 Movies & TV app

With Windows 10 Microsoft introduced new entertainment apps in the form of Groove and Movies & TV. Groove is a replacement for Xbox Music and Movie & TV is a replacement for Xbox Video. Both the apps have a lot of functionality but not much in the way of network connectivity. While it is not immediately obviously you can use the Movies & TV app to access videos stored on shared folders on PCs and servers on your home network.

First you need to share out the folder containing your videos, if you have done this already jump to the next section.

To share a folder right click on the folder and select the sharing tab, click on the share button and click on the dropdown users list. You will see a list of users on your system that you can share with or you can select the Everyone account. Sharing folders can be complex and using HomeGroup is the easiest way, in my forthcoming book “Entertainment apps on the go with Windows 10” we delve more into sharing.

So once you have media in a shared folder you can access it from Movies & TV app.

Open up the Movies & TV app (or Film & TV on UK systems).

Select Settings, select the “Choose where we look for videos” link and the app shows the folders it’s currently monitoring for videos:

Click on the + button and Windows will show a folder browser dialog box.

Click on the Network icon in the folders view and then double click on computer containing the shared folder.

Navigate to the folder containing the media and click on the “Add this folder to Videos” button.

The folder will then be added to the collection of watched folder, click Done to complete the process.

The app will then start adding the content of the shared folder and you will be able to play videos stored on the remote server.

If you want to do more advanced sharing then you should look at a solution like Plex or Emby, you can also share content between computers using Windows Media Player.