Windows 10: Every time there's a new version, something disappears from File Explorer

Sometime last year, my NAS was no longer listed in File Explorer. Now, with version 1903, my Windows 7 computer, that was listed under 1809, no longer shows in File Explorer. It would appear that Microsoft does not care about the damage and disruption they cause by changing how browsing and file sharing over the network. Given their lack of concern, is there any way a user can avoid these issues? Maybe there's a File manager other than File Explorer that would bring back the easy functionality of navigating around the network before Microsoft decided customers did not need it?


Update: my Windows 7 computer appeared after a few minutes. Maybe I was too impatient to allow browsing to complete. Issue of NAS still outstanding, and question about file manager that goes back to the good old days is still valid.

:)

 

Every time there's a new version, something disappears from File Explorer

Sometime last year, my NAS was no longer listed in File Explorer. Now, with version 1903, my Windows 7 computer, that was listed under 1809, no longer shows in File Explorer. It would appear that Microsoft does not care about the damage and disruption they
cause by changing how browsing and file sharing over the network. Given their lack of concern, is there any way a user can avoid these issues? Maybe there's a File manager other than File Explorer that would bring back the easy functionality of navigating
around the network before Microsoft decided customers did not need it?

Update: my Windows 7 computer appeared after a few minutes. Maybe I was too impatient to allow browsing to complete. Issue of NAS still outstanding, and question about file manager that goes back to the good old days is still valid.

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Optical Drive Disappears from File Explorer


After much procrastination on upgrading a perfectly good Windows 7 operating system, I took the leap and successfully upgrading to Windows 10 over Two months ago. After completing the upgrade, I though wow what a great product. All of the installed drives, devices etc. were listed and worked just as before. About 2 weeks ago, I noticed that my Blu-ray drive was no longer listed in File Explorer. I checked Device Manager and it was listed and showed to be working properly. I found similar but not identical issues several forms related to a device disappearing so I tried some of the suggestions all of which did not cause the optical drive to appear as before. Since the drive is less than 3 months old, I contacted manufacturer support and was told that this is a know problem when upgrading to Windows 10 vs. a new install and was advised to contact Microsoft support. The manufacture technician provided some suggestions and was advised that I should not attempt on my own and let Microsoft Support make the suggested changes.

OK, time to weed through the Microsoft maze to find a method to report what I consider a bug, considering that I did not have any issue with Windows 7. First chat session, a Microsoft support person connected to my computer remotely and performed the same procedures that I had already done so I put up with 1-1/2 of them digging though my computer in the hopes that issue could be identified. The command reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice1 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0000001 was executed as recommended by drive manufacturer and rebooted. The drive showed up in File Explorer and assumed this was the fix. This lasted approximately one week and then the optical drive again disappeared from File Explorer but shows in Device Manager and working properly.

Contacted Microsoft support chat again, when though the complete story and after 2 hours of remote connection to my computer the following Registry entries were added (as recommended by Drive Manufacturer) followed by a re-start:
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice1 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice2 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice3 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice4 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001

End result, no change, the optical drive was not listed in File Explorer. The last comment from technical support before re-st was if this does not work the optical drive is not compatible with Windows 10*Eek Interesting how a device works properly for 6 weeks and now is not compatible with Windows 10.

I performed some not technical troubleshooting like manually ejecting the drive tray and inserting a disk. After the disk read completes, now the drive is listed under File Explorer and played without any problem. After ejecting the disk, the drive disappears again from File Explorer.

In summary, my opinion is that Microsoft released Windows 10 before thoroughly testing the operating system and relies on customer complaints to fix what should have been identified during the Beta testing. This evident by the "complimentary" support as it termed in the message sent at the end of the chat session. Perhaps someone from Microsoft with more than basic troubleshooting knowledge will read this post and consider addressing this problem.