Windows 10 machines won't talk anymore

[Big Chris]

I have a laptop and a media PC both running Windows 10 Pro. Previously they were both Win7 Pro and they could happily see one another over my home private network. I could connect from one to the other via Explorer > Network, or via the UNC path in Explorer. Since upgrading to Win10 Pro though, they no longer like eachother.

I've played with all the settings I can find in Advanced Sharing Settings, in Firewall (including turning firewall off on both machines) and have enabled various things in Services which a few websites suggested. No joy.

My laptop does actually show the Media PC in the list of available devices under Network in Explorer, it just refuses to connect to it - offering to diagnose connection problems (which is never successfully does).

Settings on both machines in Advanced Sharing are as follows:

PRIVATE NETWORK:-
Turn on network discovery - Turn on auto setup of devices - YES
File and printer sharing - ON
Homegroup connections - Allow Windows to manage

ALL NETWORKS:-
Public Folder Sharing - ON
Media Streaming - ENABLED
File sharing connections - have tried both 40/56-bit and 128-bit
Password protected sharing - OFF

File and printer sharing is enabled in Firewall settings on both devices. I've also tried setting up a Homegroup (used them in the past but didn't need to on Win7) but they never find eachother to connect.

Any ideas? It's driving me mad

 

[zola25]

It's simpler to avoid using homegroups IMO.

The alternative does require a little initial setup, but once in place is far less hassle. Under network and sharing > HomeGroup Connections, change the setting to "Use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers".
Then create matching accounts on both machines - this is even easier if using an MS account. Finally, share the files you wish to see with the new account. You can also use administrative shares if the account is an admin.

If you'd prefer to stick with Homegroups, create a Homegroup on one PC and join it from the other. Then share the relevant files with the homegroup.

 

[Big Chris]

Yeah as I said, trying the Homegroup was a last resort as both machines happily talked to eachother in Win7 without them, I just tried setting one up in Win10 to see if it worked.

I went on a Google rampage last night and found various people having the same/similar issues relating to Winsock (whatever that is) and after much fiddling I've sort of got it working. The laptop can now browse to the Users folder & the shared USB storage drive on the PC which allows me to copy files to it, however the PC can't see the Users folder on the laptop (although it can see the laptop itself).

 

[zola25]

That sounds harder than it ought to be! Are both machines set to the same workgroup?

 

[Big Chris]

Yeah. Same setup as before in Win7, with Network Discovery etc turned on I could browse to the Users folder on either machine, and see any other folders I'd specifically shared. Since last night, I can now see Users on the PC from the laptop, but not Users on the laptop from the PC. All settings that I can think of are the same on both machines.

Not the end of the world as it stands as I copy files from the laptop to the PC usually and not the other way around.