Networked computers not seen in file explorer

Atom1 · 23 Nov 2018

I have 4 windows pc's on my home network. I'm just trying to understand why networking works the way it does. Here is how things look on each of the 4 devices which I will refer to as 1, 2, 5, and 7:
System #1 (Win 7, ethernet) shows: 1, 2, and 7
System #2 (Win 10, ethernet) shows: 2, 5, and 7
System #5 (Win 10, wifi) shows: 5
System #7 (Win 10, ethernet) shows: 1, 2, and 7

They all have network discovery turned on in control panel with file sharing enabled. I have also checked that the services Function Discovery Provider Host and Function Discovery Resources Publication are running.

I am able to add, for instance, shared folder on #5 under This PC on #7 by right clicking on This PC and using Add Network Location, but the #5 PC still does not show up under Network on #7.

Why is this so quirky, or am I missing something?

Atom1 · 23 Nov 2018

This morning System #2 shows: 1, 2, 5, and 7.

I'm not sure what I did exactly, but all computers on my network now see one another. One thing I did was to restart them all. This happens often enough that I'm not sure it would have been this, but sometimes that's the trick. I also went to control panel/system/Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings/Change settings and made sure each machine had a name and a description and that they were all part of Workgroup. When in Change settings, I changed the Network ID to home instead of business. Whether this had any effect or not, I can't say, but when I restart, the machine is back to business instead of home.

That's it.

EdTittel · 23 Nov 2018

When I was inching toward the solution to show all local Windows instances on the OS a couple of upgrades back, I too observed that a restart is sometimes/often necessary to get things showing properly in File Explorer/Network. Here's what's active right now on my home LAN:

Networked computers not seen in file explorer-network-items.jpg

Good job!
--Ed--

Clintlgm · 03 Dec 2018

Yes, I am noticing the same thing on my home network, I have 2 workstations that run 24/7 I'm finding since 1809 that after a period of time they will stop being seen by each other or any of my other networked computers.
I have found that restarting Function Discovery Provider Host and Function Discovery Resource Publication solves the problem without having to restart then Workstations.

I was going to start a thread on this but this thread seems to be the same problem.

Sometimes I will find that both functions are shown to be running, but still not working and restarting them solves the issue
Sometimes I'll find that one or both are not running. again starting them solves the issue
This issue started for me with 1809 .55 maybe before that but we didn't have enough time between 107 to 55 to noticed it.

Any other thoughts on why this is happening?

My network is trusted in Norton on all units, I also rung Malwarebytes paid for version but I don't think there is anything in MB that would stop or disable these functions?