Is there any way at all that I can set up VLC on a server PC in such a way that I can access a list of all my videos from another PC, and pick one to be streamed on demand?

I've been pointed at this streaming guide (pdf), but it's pretty useless. For a start, most of the menus in those screenshots don't match the actual current version VLC, and then it sort of assumes you already know what you're doing.

So far I managed to figure out how to stream a single file, which I must choose before watching on the server PC - pretty useless if you ask me! The impenetrable "UI" doesn't help either...

(P.S. The reason I'm going for streaming rather than the very simple to set up network drive is described in this question)