Edit Hosts file to fix network issues after 1803 update

Thanks. Yeah, it's a relatively simple fix. While it probably won't work in every situation, more folks ought to give it a try and see.

So I tried all of the suggested fixes above and those suggested on other threads.
What eventually did the trick was turning off TCP/IPv6 in the network adapter settings.
Hope this helps.

I updated my hosts file (eventually!) to enable access to a networked drive. Entry was "192.168.1.7 NAS2 " (without the quotes) and Eureka! it worked.

BUT (and it is a big but), it failed again after a restart. Investigation showed that something else had updated the hosts file and my new entry had been amended to "# 192.168.1.7 NAS2 ".

Still investigating to try to find the culprit.

If you are using wireless connection and do not want intruders limit the range of allotted IP addresses in the router to just the number of devices you connect.

BTW my problem of a PC not being visible on lan was solved. Thank you very much.

k64 said:

I updated my hosts file (eventually!) to enable access to a networked drive. Entry was "192.168.1.7 NAS2 " (without the quotes) and Eureka! it worked.

BUT (and it is a big but), it failed again after a restart. Investigation showed that something else had updated the hosts file and my new entry had been amended to "# 192.168.1.7 NAS2 ".

Still investigating to try to find the culprit.

The culprit was Bitdefender (my antivirus). If you have this problem, go to Bitdefender's Settings / Advanced and set "Scan hosts file" to Off.

I fail to see why the Win 10 updates have to screw around with the manual lan and startup settings I have fine tuned over a period of time. At times I have a hard time trying to find out why something that has worked since Win 7 suddenly stopped now. I do a lot of system and network configuration via batch files depending on time, day and date. These simply get deactivated or deleted by these updates. Just like this one PC that hosted one of my backup location and a shared printer suddenly disappearing.

I eventually updated my host files after severals hours of fix and tweaks from another thread.
It is now working flawlessly thanks a lot !!!
I agree about steps 3 and 4 doing the trick. 3 was already set up as I always assign fixed IP to my desktop/nas (non mobile devices) from my router.
I don't have any antivirus who will try and change my host so for now it still works after reboot.
let's hope.

Hi there
for all sorts of reasons some people can't normally or don't want to assign fixed IP addresses to machines on a network.
The other problem also is switching off IPV6 isn't a good idea if your ISP and other network services require it .

Usually the fault is in something like a printer / smart TV, Amazon fire TV box / wifi extender / smart phone / tablet etc grabbing an IP address which doesn't show on your network so when a machine tries to get the IP assigned it can't get it.

The best way is first as a lot of external equipment can't handle SMB3 is to enable SMB1 on all your computers, switch everything off including the router(s) for about 10 mins (yes to people under 25 here - smart phones do actually have a power off switch -- I know some of you will find that unbelieveable but they really do !!!) - this will clear all the DNS caches and release the ISP assigned IP. Now turn on router and bring all your other devices on line.

For NAS / Linux shares set in the global samba config file (usually found in /etc/samba directory

max protocol = NT1 <============================= not SMB1 it's now NT1
netbios name = hestur (name of your NAS / Linux server)
name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts (add wins if you use that - home users don't need wins servers usually !!!!).

While you don't need netbios it does solve a lot of problems I've found with networks especially mixing old and new hardware on the network

Cheers
jimbo