In "Network" PCs are sometimes not displayed

Question

There's a home network of half a dozen Win10 Pro and Win11Pro PCs.

From Windows Explorer, if I open "Network" sometimes I see all the PCs, sometimes I only see some. It is a completely random event that does not always occur and never in the same way.

In this network there is a PC that has shared a folder and a printer for everyone; sometimes I don't even see this PC, but if I type \PC-Name the two shared resources appear in the window and the PC appears in the list.

What's stopping these PCs from showing up?

What is the name of the protocol used to scan the network and view the PCs?

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

Based on the issue you describe, I suggest you try setting the startup type of the specified service to "Automatic" to make the computer visible on the network. You can refer to the following steps.

Go to Search, enter the word Services, and press Enter.

Change the Startup type property to Automatic for the following services.

Function Discovery Provider Host

Function Discovery Resource Publication

SSDP Discovery

UPnP Device Host

Finally restart the computer.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/networking/cannot-access-shared-folder-file-explorer

I hope the information above is helpful.

Best regards

Zunhui

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