How I Fixed My Missing Network & Homegroup Computers

After the Win 10 Threshold 2 Upgrade, many users are having Networking issues, especially not being able to see other PC's on the network in File Explorer's Network panel and Homegroup panel.

I have 3 Laptops on my network and encountered this issue and have spent several days tweaking all sorts of settings and trying many solutions I saw online. Finally one worked and now I can see all 3 Laptops in each panel in the Network section and all 3 Laptops in each panel in the Homegroup section. So everything is back to functioning properly.

This is what worked for me:

Open the services menu by clicking start and then typing 'services.msc' and pressing enter.

Look for the following services in the list:

· DNS Client
· Function Discovery Provider Host
· Function Discovery Resource Publication
· Peer Networking Grouping
· HomeGroup Provider
· HomeGroup Listener
· SSDP Discovery
· UPnP Device Host

1. I reset each of these settings FROM "Manual" TO "Automatic" one by one.

2. Right after doing each of those changes, I RESTARTED each service.

3. On two of the Laptops I had to LEAVE the Homegroup and REJOIN it.

4. I shut down all the Laptops and restarted each back up one at a time, starting with my primary Laptop which was the creator of the Homegroup.

Everything is displaying perfectly now!

The only other change today was I got this Cumulative Update which updated Win 10 on all 3 Laptops.

Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3118754)

I'm not sure if that KB3118754 update had a part in helping fix things or not, but the update did install before things started working again and I did these changes above after the update.

Win 10 is definitely quite a bit of work to maintain compared to prior versions of Windows, and you have to be really tech savvy to know what to do when things stop functioning. I can't imagine how users who don't have tech mind skills are handling it.

Good Luck to those having this networking issue. There are a ton of users experiencing problems, so Threshold 2 definitely has serious networking bugs.

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** BE SURE TO ALWAYS SET A SYSTEM RESTORE POINT BEFORE DOING ANY CHANGES! AND ANOTHER RESTORE POINT WHEN YOUR PC IS WORKING AGAIN! AND ALSO EXPORT YOUR REGISTRY SO YOU ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP OF THAT TOO! **

Hey thanks for your solution to this problem. I have about a dozen computers on my home network, and when I upgraded the devices running Windows 10 to the November 2015 1511 Version, a couple of the Windows devices 'disappeared' from the network map - at least on the Windows 10 devices as I still have a couple of devices running Windows 7 and the 'missing' computers were shown on the Windows 7 network maps. I spent several hours on the phone with Windows Support but in the end they were totally mystified. I searched and searched the web for a few days looking for someone with the same problem and perhaps a solution. I did find one other guy on Windows10forums.com with the same problem but he didn't have a solution either. When I found your thread on this forum I tried it and it fixed the problem completely. Accordingly I've posted your thread on the Windows10forums.com web site as well. How did you figure this out?

Thanks again!

Just trying every way I could think from my own tech experience and knowledge and from researching every Win 10 forum I could, to see what everyone else was trying that may have worked. I found most of this solution that worked online and then added a couple things on top of that. I do think the Update MS put out might have been a big help resolving it also.

Glad your network is working too. It's so frustrating when things like this happens because you know there has to be a solution to the problem and it's usually just a couple setting changes or fixes like in this case. Getting the right combo of tweaks is the trick usually.

Thank you so much KRL, it worked for me as well. I followed your instructions first then restarted my Pc My PC connected straight away so I then ran the update so it looks like your groundwork did the business first, so thanks again....

Awesome Beltrane!

Thanks for your help. I was able to get my homegroup issue fixed. If you don't turn off all computers, you can't create a new homegroup, because it sees an active homegroup. once they were all off I was able to set up new homegroup.

So what do I do when none of this helps? All 3 PC's on my network lost homegroup functionality after last week's Windows 10 update. I cannot leave the homegroup, as there is no such option. Nor can I join the one I was 'invited' to, as the system stalls forever on "Verifying password." Microsoft needs to hire real programmers; not college interns.

@ Rassilon - Hi. Did you get KB3118754 yet? That one apparently has networking fixes.

I wish MS would let us know what is in the updates. Everything is blind now. What is the BIG SECRET why we can't know what updates are being installed. It is so not right. Imagine if you went to the doctor and he wouldn't tell you what medicines he was putting in your body and he said just close your eyes and swallow. LOL This is so absurd that 1 Billion people can't know what is going on. Geez. No other business could do this to customers.

Hi all, thanks KRL for putting this info here and I did try this on another machine I have that exhibits the same problem
and it did not work. I know the machine I tried it on was an insider build of 10586 and that machine has been like it
since build 10166. I have tried everything I can think of and to date, the ONLY machines that I can see in my network
is laptops and PC's, the NAS and the two WD boxes will NOT show up at all. I did the update to the machine I am typing
this on and it did exactly the same thing which did NOT happen on 10240 and it also erased so many of my links to
programmes like MS Office and MS Money and a couple of others. I tried to fix them but gave up and went back to 10240.

I am going to install Th2 on a NEW HDD and see if that works? can only try but again, thanks for adding this here. :)

Just upgraded to Win 10 on main PC, have posted in SevenForums but this is my first post here. I thought I’d give this thread a go before starting a new one.

My issue is this: I set up a homegroup on main PC with Win 10 following the wizard and used all default settings. On second PC, running Win 7, went through the wizard there – joined the homegroup without a problem. Then when trying to access it, it can see the shared folders but nothing happens when trying to open any of them. No error message, the circle spins for about 30 seconds and that’s it.

When setting up the homegroup, it includes music, pictures, videos as shared as the default and the option to share the Documents folder. Are these the actual folders under my profile, the libraries or the public folders? If I get it to work can I create specific folders to share in the homegroup or specify the public folders?

Before upgrading the main PC to 10, both PC’s were on 7 where I created a secondary user account on main PC with password, and shared public folders. Second PC was able to log in the map public folders with no problem.

So before trying all these other things, I want to make sure I’m doing the basics right. There are just too many variables and I don’t have a handle on how it’s supposed to work. There’s the method I just mentioned, libraries, folder sharing, setting who to share with, sharing libraries, public folders, sharing settings, advanced sharing, permissions, and so on.

Web searches take me to Win 7 or 8 set ups which are almost the same, so those haven’t helped much.

Any help appreciated!