How does Windows Network Discovery actually work?

Excuse the basicness of this lingering doubt:

I learnt that Network Discovery enables devices (computers, printers, servers, etc.) to identify and locate each other on the same network, using certain protocols like LLMNR, SSDP, mDNS, etc.

What is meant by "enabling"? is it just allowing these to talk through the firewall?
I mean: I guess the services, apps etc needing to talk "are not communicated that Network Discovery was enabled or disabled" so they begin advertising their presence, right?...I guess they're advertising their presence whether Network discovery is off or on?


Any insight much appreciated

When you see the yellow Explorer banner to "enable Network Discovery", then Windows will automatically enable services and unblock the firewall. But if you're scripting commands, then you have to do it yourself..

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="File and Printer Sharing" new enable=yes

NetworkCategory : Private ?

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetConnectionProfile

C:\Windows\System32>sc qtriggerinfo fdrespub

Bree said:

There are two services involved, one publishes this PC's resources, the other discovers the resources published by other PCs.

Function Discovery Resource Publication Publishes this computer and resources attached to this computer so they can be discovered over the network. If this service is stopped, network resources will no longer be published and they will not be discovered by other computers on the network.

Function Discovery Provider Host The FDPHOST service hosts the Function Discovery (FD) network discovery providers. These FD providers supply network discovery services for the Simple Services Discovery Protocol (SSDP) and Web Services – Discovery (WS-D) protocol. Stopping or disabling the FDPHOST service will disable network discovery for these protocols when using FD. When this service is unavailable, network services using FD and relying on these discovery protocols will be unable to find network devices or resources.

Thank you for the clarification. Much appreciated ��