Problem setting up a LAN

Question

I'm trying to set up a LAN among four computers, 3 of them Win 10 and one Win 7. I believe I have everything configured correctly per the manual, although two of them (the Win 7 and the oldest Win 10 - which itself used to be Win 7) were once on a homegroup whose password I can't find.

For now, though, I just want to focus on the problem of having them see each other, which they sometimes have been able to do and sometimes not. At present, the Win 10 laptop sees only itself when one double-clicks the Network icon on the desktop. The newest Win10 sees only the Win10 laptop and does not list itself. Both PCs are turned on and awake.

Currently the Win 10 laptop is connected via Wi-fi and the Win10 desktop is connected via ethernet. I have just set a network bridge between them. But that did not fix the problem. All these PCs are connected to the same router.

Answer 1

By the way, it turned out Win7 has the Function Discovery services, too, so I could set them to Automatic there as well, not just on the Win 10 PCs.

Answer 2

Hi ,

What's the OS version of your windows 10? 1909 or 20H2?

In my lab with two windows 10 machine, they cannot see each other or they cannot list themself. But if I set Function Discovery Resource Publication and Function Discovery Provider Host from Manual to Automatic on all windows 10 machines (need restart machine), then it works fine now:

The following article talking about how to troubleshoot the problem of network computers are not showing up, you could have a look:

Network Computers are not Showing Up in Windows 10

Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Best Regards,
Candy

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Answer 3

Thanks, but when I look in the Services tab of my Task Manager, I don't find any Function Discovery services. I do see a Fax service that matches yours, so it seems I'm in the right place.

Meanwhile, more PCs have become visible to each other in the network than before - I don't know why since there's no change I made that would seem to have caused it. Nonetheless, only about half of the PCs are visible to other PCs on average, and there seems no pattern to it. Of the ones that are visible, about two thirds say I don't have rights when I try to view them. Of the remaining 33% that are visible, about half of those give me access to their contents (their folders, etc.), and another half seem to try to open them and fail.

By the way, I now have a 5th PC connected to the network, which is entirely ethernet. With 5 PCs the either visible or not, either security failure or not, and either updatable or not, that's 5 x 2 x 2 - 50 possible combinations, of which many of them are instantiated, it being seemingly random which ones.

Answer 4

Thanks, but when I look in the Services tab of my Task Manager, I don't find any Function Discovery services. I do see a Fax service that matches yours, so it seems I'm in the right place.

Not in task manager, please check service manager:

1.Right-click on the Start button to open the WinX Menu.
2.Select Run.
3.Type services.msc in the Run box which opens.
4.Windows Services Manager will open.

Then set Function Discovery Resource Publication and Function Discovery Provider Host service from Manual to Automatic on 5 windows 10 PCs, restart the machine and check if you can see all the machines in network.

Answer 5

Thanks. Before I proceed, please clarify: What do you mean by "5 windows on 10 PCs"?

There are 5 PCs on the network, not 10. If you set both Function Discovery lines to Automatic on each of the 5 PCs, that would give us 10. But neither of those two lines is a window...