Windows 10 shares disappear...

Croozng, I ran into this some time back. What I discovered through days of web searching that this is caused by Win10 problems with Master Browser. There is a thread in this forum that discusses this problem in great detail. The problem appears to be random because it has to do with the order/if various network P/Cs are shut down and turned back on. Bottom line, to my knowledge, M$ has not fixed this issue for over a year of patches. One suggested solution that I found on this forum to solve this issue is forcing your router to be the Master Browser. Since the router usually stay on, it will always keep track of all the p/cs you have connected to your network. If your router supports a USB thumb drive and and readyshare file sharing, you can plug a stick (any size the smaller the better) in the router and shut down all your PCs. Restart everything that forces the router to be the master browser. I have netgear routers and they all support this. Give it a try and search this forum for Master Browser for the whole story...

Thanks guys...

your suggestions sound promising, I don't have time to work on it today, but will do tomorrow. Thanks again...

Forcing the router to be the master browser is an option, but not without caveats. One is that enabling the router to be the WINS server applies to the wireless network as well. Having the guesses looking at the list of network shares is not ideal, even if there's logical separation between the physical and wireless networks.

The system started up first does become the master browser and that's fine.

What's not fine is that one of the system, where IPv6 disabled shows this:

Code:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping machine1  
Pinging Machine1 [::1:] with 32 bytes of data: 
Reply from ::1: time<1ms 
Reply from ::1: time<1ms 
Reply from ::1: time<1ms 
Reply from ::1: time<1ms  

Ping statistics for ::1:     Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), 
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:     
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms  

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Looking at the netbios stats shows this:

Code:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>nbtstat -a ::1::  
Ethernet: 
Node IpAddress: [192.168.x.x] Scope Id: []      

Host not found.  


C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Not even by IP:

Code:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>nbtstat -a 192.168.x.x  
Ethernet: 
Node IpAddress: [192.168.x.x] Scope Id: []      

Host not found.  

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

I started to believe that I should just map network drives manually, since there are only four PCs...

Yes, I see where guest access could be an issue but, I think you can limit what guests can see in router settings and prevent them from seeing your full network. May be wrong here. I have a similar setup to yours though I do run multiple routers in a bridge to increase my WIFI coverage. However, I disable all my guest ports. With the 1st boot being the Master, I've also noted that if that particular machine get turned off first, then the rest of the network is now lost. Though supposedly, the MB should shift to the next machine, I find that it doesn't. Not sure about your other issue. I don't think I have IPV6 disabled anywhere. I'll have to take time and check that.. I also don't have a specific network share drive. I just share the drives I want to share in each machine.

My present network issue is thanks to the Windows 10 cumulative update released a couple weeks ago. They once again have removed and blocked SMB v1 which breaks my Android's ability to share files with my network over WIFI. Even adding V1 back doesn't seem to work this time as it has in the past. M$ keeps trying to protect me from myself and it's annoying to me. Now I'm having to run a file manager app that supports SMB V2 and I like the old app much better....

Ken... Like you'd need education about the IPv6...

Some of the reasons are that my ISP does not support IPv6 and neither does some of the printers. On the other hand, my router/switches/OS's do, but I am a firm believer to use the common denominator. Plus, my older head can remember IPv4 addresses better than IPv6.

As for forcing the master browser.... I have no issues with that and it was done.

Normally, system is the first one that starts up manually and the system with the shares being the second after awhile. The order had been reversed today and with the changes to the registries, the results were encouraging initially. On the system with the shares, the shares showed up in network browsing. Trying to browse the network on my and other systems only showed PCs, but not the one with the shares. That did not change even after six hours, but mapping drives worked from the get go.

I won't have much time until the weekend, but will do some more testing then...

Nick... Enabling WINS services on the router will be applied to both the wired and wireless networks. This is due to fact that the DHCP server has a single IP range for all networks. While there's a logical separation between the "Guess" and other networks, the WINS/Master Browser will be applied to guess' devices. Maybe I should dig up my Jupiter wireless router, that allows setting different IP ranges and and other settings.

This is my small business network, mainly health care related business, where I cannot take chances in exposing clients data. Hence the reason why there are more restriction than in a home network.

So, it was the Windows 10 cumulative update couple of weeks ego that broke network browsing again. MS is getting on my nerves with their Windows 10 frequent updates, to say it mildly. I can hardly wait for the feature update next month. NOT!!!

The shares are back after about two weeks, after leaving the registry setting for all four systems as:

Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services \Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList = No

During the last two weeks or so, mapping network drives with valid account on the desktop with the shares worked just fine. Spot check some of the systems, there had been no changes to the registry settings.

This issue is a mystery for me; updates break network sharing, allows mapping network drives and then, network sharing comes back on its own without changing any system setting and/or applying updates of any kind. This is not the first time, I've seen this and probably not the last.

I am going to mark this as resolved with no solution, at least in my case...