So without being too hyperbolic, I'm about to die! I've spent too many hours with 0 progress and am beginning to resent pcs in general. I have 3 pcs (2 desktops and a laptop) all wired via gigabit. In short - my desktop (a) can see itself and my laptop under network, but not the other desktop (b). My laptop can see itself and my desktop (a) but not the other desktop (b) My other desktop (b) can't see itself, but can see my desktop (a) and my laptop. All I've come up with so far is the miserable reformatting of my desktop that presumably is the key to the issue (b). A few things happened after such that may point you networking geniuses in the right direction. A) it showed up on the network immediately after a fresh Windows install. B) it disappeared after I changed the name. C) I got it to show up spontaneously after a full shutdown (not restart) but may have been coincidence. What happened next was this - upon restarting either the laptop or desktop (a) it continued to see itself and the others continued to see it. After restarting desktop (b) itself - it once again no longer saw itself nor did the others see it. Further shutdowns/restarts were fruitless. Also rebooted both router and switch. I'm at a loss, yet ocd enough to not move forward with anything until I fix this. Oh I forgot to add, they can see plex media server if it is running on the desktop (b) and if I type in the address they can reach the Desktop (b) and browse it just fine. Simply nothing shows in explorer Learn me sum networking101!
Also tried the purported enable netbios over TCP/IP with no change. Am I correct in assuming that desktop (b) has to be the problem? Aka reformatting the laptop or desktop (a) wouldn't help me? I'd hate to have to but this is becoming ridiculous fast . Whatever it takes! Someone suggested I download wireshark. I did but it's a wee over my head and may have been misplaced advice anyhow.
Okay I have some new info which is odd and I'm not sure if it's relevant or not. 1) desktop A and desktop B can ping one another. 2) desktop A and desktop B cannot ping the laptop 3) laptop can ping desktop A and desktop B 4) both desktops are on the newest version of win10 - the laptop is on a slightly older version of win10. (All x64 enterprise) 5) to reiterate, nobody can see desktop B in file explorer but if navigated to via address it can be browsed. Hope this helps...
you probably know all about this and have this enabled, but i'll put this out,network and sharing centre/change advanced sharing settings/turn on network discovery - turn on automatic network discovery - turn on file and printer sharing - allow windows to manage homegroup connections - and the 'turn off password protected sharing' helps. do this on all computers.
I'll learn my lesson eventually. After dumping all pcs and doing my main pc last, somehow it was the culprit. A product of a "remove telemetry" app that removed the browser service completely. Jesus I'm decidedly going much more conservative this time. I'm exhausted with reformatting Now the only issue is I changed a pc name when I reformatted and the old name as well as new name is showing up in network. I can't seem to win.
"Jesus I'm decidedly going much more conservative this time." I am always happy to read from an intelligent person.
The old name should be removed when leases are expired or you can try removing it via cmd prompt: ipconfig /flushdns ipconfig /release followed by either a reboot or ipconfig /renew