Homegroup, was fine now unable to access any other PC or Laptop

Hi Mike.
I had done as you kindly suggested.

Quote from my post above:

set both to OFF and rebooted, same error. Set both to ON rebooted, same error.

Settings for both machines are the same, HomeGroup was working fine then next day this problem raised its ugly head. I have even Repair installed my W10 64 Pro on my PC and that has made no difference.

One thing that really confuses me is if you enlarge the second screenshot showing my laptops file system my PC is shown under My Computer, and under networking and under Computers, two sub files of my PC are shown on the right panel with Audio 2010 and Users plus my printer. However the laptop cannot access the PC shown on the left panel . Either it can or it cannot. I am guessing that these actual references may be left overs from when Homegroup was working as it should??

Trapper said:

Hi Mike.
I had done as you kindly suggested.

Quote from my post above:


Settings for both machines are the same, HomeGroup was working fine then next day this problem raised its ugly head. I have even Repair installed my W10 64 Pro on my PC and that has made no difference.

One thing that really confuses me is if you enlarge the second screenshot showing my laptops file system my PC is shown under My Computer, and under networking and under Computers, two sub files of my PC are shown on the right panel with Audio 2010 and Users plus my printer. However the laptop cannot access the PC shown on the left panel . Either it can or it cannot. I am guessing that these actual references may be left overs from when Homegroup was working as it should??

Have you clicked on Advanced sharing, and looked at those settings??? So far the other settings were not the same, what about the settings under Advanced??? Check them out....post here.....

Also on your firewall how about this setting on your laptop, I took this off another users reply, with almost same problem as yours.

"all good again now :) - only additional trick was firewall was no longer set as 'local' or 'trusted' on laptop"

Hi Mike.
I will check these out ASAP. Please bear with me, we have two disabled relations living with us; both OAP's (As my wife and I are also OAP's) one disabled has nearly no sight and the other disabled has just been diagnosed with dementia so life is a little stressed out at the moment! If I had any hair left I'd be pulling it out .

Hell, don't you just hate getting old, nobody told us when we were young

I will be back........

Hi Mike.

I am back and pleased to say it is now 'Sorted'

I am using (But not for much longer) BitDefender Total Security 2016, after around 7 days of messing around and a solid 5 hours today double checking anything and everything without any luck I dug out my old XP rig. That worked and could see both my PC and Laptop in 'My Network Places' and connect to both, its firewall was way out of date.

So I disabled the BitDefender's Firewall in both machines and set up a new HomeGroup on the PC and joined it with the Laptop in under 3 minutes! My wife can now access the files she needs.

They are both now running Windows Firewalls.:)

Many thanks for your help on this, but just remember if you see it come up again, HomeGroup and BitDefender are not best bedfellows!!

Trapper said:

Hi Mike.

I am back and pleased to say it is now 'Sorted'

I am using (But not for much longer) BitDefender Total Security 2016, after around 7 days of messing around and a solid 5 hours today double checking anything and everything without any luck I dug out my old XP rig. That worked and could see both my PC and Laptop in 'My Network Places' and connect to both, its firewall was way out of date.

So I disabled the BitDefender's Firewall in both machines and set up a new HomeGroup on the PC and joined it with the Laptop in under 3 minutes! My wife can now access the files she needs.

They are both now running Windows Firewalls.:)

Many thanks for your help on this, but just remember if you see it come up again, HomeGroup and BitDefender are not best bedfellows!!

Yes I have never used Bitdefender and after checking some other posts from users on here, it did sound like a firewall problem, that's why I suggested that you might want to take a look at your firewall settings. VERY GLAD that you solved your network problems Trapper!!!! Great job sir :) Windows firewall is not bad, lots of members on here have used it for years, with no problems. Also around Nov 2nd, we should see a big update for Windows 10, which should have a few bug fixes, and some changes to a few apps.... Hope you delete that Bitdefender Sounds like your better off without it.
Take Care , Mike :)