Homegroup madness after Creators Update

Popster · 16 May 2017

Greetings all.

Although it's my first post here, I feel as if I know some of you fairly well after reading dozens of posts about Windows 10 Homegroup problems. Nevertheless, despite all the reading I've done, I am unable to solve this very irritating problem I'm having.

I own a videography business and have four computers on my home office LAN. All was well until about 24 hours ago when a couple of the computers rolled over to the Creators update (version: 1703). I use Free File Sync to perform versioned backups of my production machine to networked (mapped) drives.

Unfortunately, after the update I have not been able to get Homegroup networking to work. I have localized the problem to two computers which are behaving badly. If only one is online I can create a Homegroup without any problem. Once the other comes online, everything breaks.

Computer A - can create a Homegroup and after doing so this is how things appear:

Homegroup madness after Creators Update-homegroup-4.png

Computer B starts and Computer A now does this:

Homegroup madness after Creators Update-homegroup-2.png

Computer B shows an available Homegroup (You've been invited to join a homegroup). It does not give me the option to create a Homegroup.
- Click "Join Now"
- Enter Password...wait 20 or 30 seconds...
- Returns error: Windows no longer detects a homegroup on this network....

Then, going back to Computer A, if I select "Leave Network" I see this:

Homegroup madness after Creators Update-homegroup-5.png

With the two red dashes = my name followed by a nonexistent computer name (Computer Z). Keep in mind this window and its results only appear if Computer B is online, or vice versa.

If I attempt to join the Homegroup supposedly created by Computer Z I am unsuccessful as I don't know the password. Neither can any other computers on the network join Computer Z's Homegroup.

Keep in mind this behavior only happens when either Computer A and B are online. Computer A , C and D get along fine. Computer B, C and D get along fine. But if A and B are on at the same time...splat.

I have done the following in an attempt to solve the issue:

On all four computers, deleted all files in C:Windows/ServiceProfiles/LocalService/AppData/Roaming/PeerNetworking (I've done this so many times I can quote that path backwards) followed by reboots.

On all four computers (numerous times on A and B) C:ProgramData/Microsoft/Crypto/RSA/MachineKeys --> appended "-old" to the folder name then created a new "MachineKeys" folder with full permissions for "Everyone".

I have flushed the DNS Cache (ipconfig /flushdns).

Made new users and computer names to try to get rid of Computer Z.

So, here I am....

bro67 · 16 May 2017

Really long post for something that there is already a tutorial about. You do not need to use Homegroup to share files. Just use the standard Network sharing. Homegroup was a mental headache created by Microsoft that died as soon as Windows 7 rolled out. It looked great on paper, but Microsoft's Engineers screwed it up from the beginning. The fact that it uses IPv6 and has to have no firewall running on a machine, especially third party software. That becomes another issue.

Popster · 17 May 2017

I understand I don't necessarily require Homegroup to function. But it's easier and simpler. I like simpler. I don't have the time to be a network specialist. That's why I shut down my FreeNAS server...too much hassle.

Furthermore, my infrastructure was working fine until the recent update, so something broke and I want to know what and why. Those are relevant issues, as opposed to opinions about MS engineers.

bro67 · 17 May 2017

Not easier, Homegroup is actually harder and it was an attempt to reinvent the wheel to make secured access to "Libraries" that are just shortcuts to your user folders. It is easier if you had just used your NAS setup to share files out to the network, than trying to deal with Homegroup.

Also File Sync only backs up the folders inside your user folder for documents, videos, pictures, profile information. You do not have to be an engineer to share a folder across the network. Nor does Microsoft have anything to do with something that is very simple and there are tutorials on here that walk through setting up a shared folder.

Also if your computers updated to the Creators update, yes it will cause issues and you need to roll it back to remove Creators update if you do not want it installed. If you want to install Creators Update, I would suggest doing it as a clean install. That is why Homegroup gets screwed up if you let Windows Update just do as it wishes.