Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2021 October 9

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October 9

Local Network or Homegroup, again

User:Ruslik0 - You provided what look like good instructions both for setting sharing on a drive and then accessing the drive from another computer, and for setting up a Homegroup. I can't get either of them to work. Can someone tell me what some of the possible pitfalls are that I may be running into?

As to local network, I have turned on sharing on a folder on my desktop computer. At least I think have turned it on. I have tried to access the folder on my laptop computer by specifying either the IP address, 10.0.0.176, or the name of my computer. I think that I have turned discovery on for both computers. I will check again. What are some of the mistakes that can happen with a local network?

As to the Homegroup, the book says to go to the Start menu and launch the Control Panel. The Control Panel has been renamed Settings, and I have an icon on the taskbar to launch the Settings, so I launch it. I then search on Homegroup, and it goes to Sync Passwords. I don't think that is what I want to do. Is there something semi-obvious that I might be doing wrong? (If it were fully obvious, I would have solved it.)

Is it time to give up? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:13, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

The easiest way to test this is to start File Explorer (⊞ Win+E) on the other machine, and then enter in the address bar (accessed by pressing Alt+D), the address \\10.0.0.176\ This will connect to the other machine, and list what it shares. If an error occurs, then there is a configuration error. Otherwise you may be asked for a username/password on the other machine. Enter 10.0.0.76\username for the username. LongHairedFop (talk) 18:27, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

One obvious pitfall on Windows 8 onwards (i.e. including Windows 10, and well I'm assuming 11) is you should make sure the local network is set to the private network profile on each device. I think you may be able to manually set up file sharing to be accessible over a public network in the firewall settings at least on Pro. But it must be a rare scenario where it makes sense to do this instead of just setting the network where plan to make file sharing available as private. Windows popups one of the new style dialog boxes when it detects a new network generally when an adapter connects to a new router or the settings change such that it's seen as new, but from my experience it's very easy to accidentally miss those. Also I'm guessing a lot of people get confused and think because it's connected to the internet it should be public.

To check open up "Network status" on the new settings app. (Generally just typing network status in the Start Menu and enter should work. Alternatively type it and choose the right option. As a file option if you know how to open the new settings app, search for network status and open it.) There look for the right network if there are multiple ones listed and click on properties and look at the network profile and make sure it's private. Make sure you do this for each device you want file sharing to be available. Note that you need to do this all in the new settings app. I can't recall if you could ever do it on the Control Panel but you haven't been able to for a while.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:26, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

You can simply use Explorer and go to Network quasi-folder. Ruslik_Zero 20:45, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

@Ruslik0, Nil Einne, and LongHairedFop: - Thank you. I see what one problem was, which is that my network, defined by my cable modem / wifi router, was defined as a public network. I am setting it to private and will post updates in a few hours. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:00, 12 October 2021 (UTC)