Can't see other computers in Workgroup on Windows 10 computer

linw said:

In one forum an MS employee has acknowledged the problem and says a fix may come in March! We have to hope it is 1 March.

I hope this is a true statement. Is it possible to put up the link to the thread you are referring to here?

I upgraded both of my Windows 7 Professional computers to Windows 10 during the past few months. Last week, I had some time on my hands so I decided to upgrade the laptop, which was running Windows 7 Home Premium. It seemed to go fine but there were intermittent problems connecting mapped network drives.

I removed the mapped network drives, thinking that adding them anew would be a solution. Then I discovered that not all the computers see each other at all times. And what is really odd is that the two desktop computers seem to take turns displaying all the devices available on my home network. This issue manifests when browsing through file explorer, even though all three computers are in the same workgroup. It's maddening!

Even though I cannot see all the devices all the time using the file explorer, I can still map the drive using \\COMPUTER\sharename.

Weird ...

I put in a call to my paid pro support for the laptop, because it is relatively new. Dell abdicated responsibility but they conference called with me to Microsoft. That was a complete loss of hours of my life which will never be replenished. One day, they (Microsoft) tells me the support is free because Windows 10 is a new operating system. The next day, after being transferred hither and thither and being put on hold for extended periods of time over the course of an hour and a half, The rep came back and told us (Dell support was still on the call) that I would have to pay for support. I thanked Dell support for trying and told Microsoft support where to get off, and hung up.

During research, before calling anyone, I discovered that Windows 10, in its wisdom, creates a homegroup for each computer automatically. That's. Just. Wrong. It may be the cause of all the mayhem with Windows 10 networking. I think that I remember learning you couldn't simultaneously run a homegroup and a workgroup at the time I decided upon implementing a workgroup sort of network, way back in my XP days.

Anyway, this is my first actual post in the forum so I should probably stop ranting.

Have a look here:
Testing of the fix in build 11102 for CIFS/Samba sharing problem

marjwyatt, the link for the March fix date is here:-https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/2131750e-d589-41f0-b6a3-1c7dac2361d9/cannot-connect-to-cifs-smb-samba-network-shares-shared-folders-in-windows-10-after-update

Look for Adam towards the end of the thread.

I would bet that the reason you see successful network shares move from one desktop to the other is that shares show fine on the master browser and you are seeing the shift of the MB from one comp to the other. To confirm, run nbtstat -n from a command prompt and that will show which comp is the master browser.

With reference to your attempts at getting a fix from Dell and MS, I am utterly gobsmacked that neither know that this is not solvable until MS fix it. This ignorance would worry the hell out of me if I was dependent on their help!

Dunno if anybody has mentioned this yet, but I was helping someone with this problem who was trying to access some shared folders on a Windows 8.1 machine from one that was recently upgraded to 10 from 8, and the fix that worked for me was simple. Just went and renamed the Workgroups to something consistent across both machines and restarted. Poof, suddenly the missing shared folders appeared.

Just right click This PC, click Properties, and click the Change button over to the right of where it says Workgroups. At the bottom of the window that appears, it should let you change the Workgroup name.

For what it's worth, both computers' workgroups were initially named 'Workgroup', but for some reason, renaming them both (and ensuring the name stayed consistent) fixed the problem. In my case, I used 'Tax' because this was a tax preparer's PC.

Hope this helps anyone still having this problem after all is said and done.

linw said:

With reference to your attempts at getting a fix from Dell and MS, I am utterly gobsmacked that neither know that this is not solvable until MS fix it. This ignorance would worry the hell out of me if I was dependent on their help!

Thanks for the link, linw. I've bookmarked it and, maybe one day, a solution will be forthcoming from MS.

To your comment above, MS was certainly prepared to take a credit card number from me an bill me for something they couldn't fix. I felt a little bad about the way I exited that call yesterday but, given my interaction here today and what I've since learned, I'm feeling far less guilty about telling them (MS) where to jump off.

Running the nbtstat -n command, I observed that the computer which is showing all systems on the network via file manager includes the MB, and the machine that showed all systems yesterday does not. I'm not an expert at networks, by any means, but I guess that means that the first computer to fully boot up wins the race and becomes the MB for the network.

linw said:

Lexlen, you surely describe the problem well. I only have a little home network that no longer works properly but you have a much more serious issue. I really feel for you and other business people. You can't help but feel seriously let down, even betrayed, by MS.

Your comments on Bing and Google results are interesting!

The master browser is part of the problem as win 10 has no problem on the comp that is the MB. It is just that other win 10 comps can't access the MB data. These comps give a 1231 error with net view.

NetBIOS figures here as well as the latest Insider releases show shares on Linux devices being discovered by NetBIOS and the win 10 comps by WSD.

It just seems as if MS was trying to 'modernise' network discovery protocols and this ploy seriously back fired to the severe detriment of the win 10 adopters. But it is hugely worrying that this serious deficiency was released into the wild, and even more worrying that we are being kept in the dark.

In one forum an MS employee has acknowledged the problem and says a fix may come in March! We have to hope it is 1 March.

Hi Linw, Thanks for confirming my suspicions, It is a breath of fresh air reading your comments and your understanding and logic, most people out there just reply or post answers not relevant in any way to the question asked and one has to go through a major explanation of the problem, its sometimes like asking someone why his car does not want to start and an answer will come back and say"have you checked the Battery", or even worse "have you checked tire pressure".
This Win 10 problem has not only caused me wasting my time at my clients but also for MS and people downgrading back to Windows 7. I have been in IT for many years and a big supporter of MS, even met Bill Gates twice and set-up a DEC Alpha system for him when he was in South Africa and demonstrated the multitasking ability of Windows NT, he is a great person and passionate about computing and IT, but I am losing confidence in MS as a company. If they would only put out a bulletin on the bugs and problems they know about they would gain a lot of respect from the people who market and support their products, most probably even sort out their bugs faster and better, and more people would trust and support them. We all have problems and no one is perfect, no one expects MS to be perfect, we just need to recognise and admit a problem not hide it. Have a good Day and thanks for your help. I will wait and see, but till then will not be recommending any upgrading to Win 10 for networking applications.

Thanks for kind comments, Lexlen. I've been in IT a long time as well but can't say I have met Bill!!

Hope we can get a solution soon, but confidence in, and respect for, MS has suffered.

Cheers.

JagerBaBomb said:

Dunno if anybody has mentioned this yet, but I was helping someone with this problem who was trying to access some shared folders on a Windows 8.1 machine from one that was recently upgraded to 10 from 8, and the fix that worked for me was simple. Just went and renamed the Workgroups to something consistent across both machines and restarted. Poof, suddenly the missing shared folders appeared.

The first thing I did when I couldn't find all the networked computers via file explorer was verify that they remained in the same workgroup, which they did. My Workgroup is named MSHOME. It was while I was verifying this that I learned that the Windows 10 upgrade created a separate Homegroup for each computer. I've never used Homegroup, it is far too limited.

Dell suggested rebuilding the Workgroup, which I haven't tried yet. I don't know if I will, based on what I learned here.

I solved my problem by shutting down the firewall of my virus program (VIPER) and turning on the windows firewall.

Another one having the same problem here.

I've had it since shortly after upgrading my Asus laptop to 10 Pro in July 2015. I have a desktop, a Windows Home Server 2011 and a Synology NAS on my home network, plus I could always see my printer and my OpenELEC PC. For months I've only been able to see the WHS on my Asus and at times not even that.

I had to move MediaMonkey to my WHS because all my music is on the Synology NAS and the laptop could no longer see the files - a right PITA.

I hope there is a fix in March, it's really been driving me crazy that I've not been able to resolve it!