Windows 10: Super frustrated with Windows 10 - Home Networking!!

I've been running up against problems with Windows networking most of my adult life (I'm 40), but this is another level of strange. I will cut right to the chase. I have a home network with a one word workgroup, and all computers are a part of it. I have network discovery and file sharing turned on, on all of these computers. 2 of my 3 computers are able to share files with each other, a 3rd is not. I've gone over all the settings. I've enabled NetBIOS. My nic drivers are updated to latest and greatest. I plug in the IP address of my desktop followed by a D$, and I get prompted for username/password. I think, great!! now maybe we are in business!! No joy though. It won't take.

Here are some potentially important factors.

Number 1 - The computer I am trying to connect from is a laptop which is wireless, where-as my other computers that are working, are wired on the network. --- I had this same problem at a friends clinic a few months ago, with a printer that was set up wireless on the network. Windows 10 computers kept losing their connections to it. I would reset everything and rebuild it up from scratch. It would work for a week, and then I would get a call that it wasn't working again. I eventually fixed it by running a cable and setting the printer up on the network via Ethernet. --- However, there was still one machine at the clinic that was wireless, and try as I might, I could not get it to connect to this printer. They determined it wasn't really important, so we let that one go. Every other machine that was wired in, could print just fine. The wireless router here was a 300 dollar Asus, top of the line. I happen to have a high end Asus - RT-AC68U. Not the same router, but pretty close, which is why I mention it.

Number 2 - The username on my desktops is identical - It's my email address at Hotmail, along with my password. This is because Microsoft required it if I want to use the store, and at the end of the day I no longer have a problem using my email as my username, however unnatural that still might feel, provided it works.. My daughters laptop (the one that can't connect), uses her email address as username which is of course different than mine. When I connect direct to the IP of my desktop, and I plug in my email/password to access it, it doesn't take. I get "access denied" and it comes right back to prompt.

I will add, that I am actually really starting to like Windows 10, especially on my daughters new laptop. She has an Acer spin 7 which has a gorgeous touchscreen. I find myself really liking the way this thing works, and wishing I had a nice wireless windows 10 touchscreen laptop like this myself. Alas, the kids get all the good stuff, cuz they have to write important papers for school... *Sad


That's about it really. Any help greatly appreciated!!

:)

 

Cursor has disappeared with Windows 10 update

Just completed my Windows 10 update. Was Windows 7, using a Toshiba laptop that's a couple of years old. Cursor appears on the sign in screen, but once I get to my home page the cursor disappears after about ten seconds making my laptop unusable. Super
frustrating, does anyone have a solution??

 

Windows Updates kills my internet connection

I'm really starting to hate Windows 10. Every time updates are loaded it wipes out my internet connection. I end up having to restore multiple times and hope for the best. I had shut off automatic updates, but it seems somehow that was overwritten and
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Why do the updates kill my internet connections every time?

 

Any share with $ is a hidden share for admin only if your using wireless by default most routers have user isolation set this means on wireless you can connect to the Internet but not local network it's set if anyone breaks into the network they can't gain access to local PC have you checked the router for this setting?

 

I get the same when connecting without adding the dollar sign, and I have never had any problem connecting this way in the past.

No isolation configured on the router. It is set up as an access point as it is not my primary router, though it is the only wireless router in my home network. It lives at 192.168.0.2, while my primary router lives at .1

AP isolation is disabled. All devices are on same subnet.

 

run this does it see all the network and which pc is master browser? NetBScanner - NetBIOS scanner

 

I believe the user account is your issue. On the computer that you want to connect to D$ create a new "LOCAL" account and assign it a password and make sure it has admin rights. Then try to connect to this share from the wireless laptop, and when it prompts you for a login use the new user account as follows (minus the quotes") "computername\username" and then put the password in the password field. Let me know if this works.

 

Several PC's are detected as master browser, as is the one that I am trying to access. If I click on network in file browser, none of the machines show up. The only way I can get to login prompt is to plug the ip into the address bar.

I don't think it's the user account. I tried the opposite before on a different machine and was unable to access the computer until I switched to the Microsoft account.

 

The C$ administrative share has been deemed to be a security risk in the past few years and so Microsoft has in it's wisdom added restrictions to the access possibilities. This also applies to other root shares if you have them.

Try setting up your shares a level down and see if this improves matters basically C$ can be flaky to say the least but share C:\folder and it should work fine

 

That doesn't explain why I can access just fine from one computer on the wired network, but not from another on wireless. C is not shared, but the rest of my drives are, and that is the way I want them. I'd rather not take the time to share every folder after root if I don't have to, and given that it works fine on wired, just not from wireless...?

I can also access these shares fine from my Android phones, using the email address user account. Very strange.

 

On your daughters laptop open Programs and Features, click on Turn Windows features on or off. Wait for the resulting windows to populate then scroll down the list and look for SMB 1.0/CIFS file sharing support. If that entry does not have a check mark click on the box next to it. Then click Ok at the bottom of the screen.

Restart the computer for the changes to take effect. Can you now see your other networked computers in File Explorer?

 

Darn. I thought maybe you were onto the solution there. Unfortunately, that add on was already installed.

 

Hmm, was SNMP Simple Network Management also on? Also I should have said that you need to shutdown the laptop and then start it up again (cold start). If you have not done a cold start yet do that first and have a look again. If still no love enable SNMP and cold start again.

I had the same issue as you and found that on all but one of my machines both services needed to be enabled for things to start working. One of my machines however was and is happy with just the SMB1.0/CIFS file sharing support enabled. Can't explain the why to that but it works and that's good enough for me.

Another thing that might make a difference in my setup is that my router serves as the Master Browser and is the only Master Browser in the network. At one point I like you had multiple Master Browsers. A shutdown of all networked computers and the router then startup the router first followed by the attached computers solved that issue for me and it has not returned since even though I have had to reboot the router a number of times since.

 

Hi there

Android is essentially LINUX which has had decent networking from the outset and accesses Windows via the SAMBA protocol which works straight out of the box in 999.999% out of 1000% cases.

I agree with you that I've always had random issues with Windows networking -- sometimes ONE seemingly identical computer just won't connect while all the other ones do !!!

I don't though think it's a good idea to share a '$' prefixed drive -- create a "standard" share.

Other than that I think it's just a question of trial and error -- various things work sometimes and then they suddenly stop !!!
The only problem with Linux / Android is if using Wifi -- but these days Linux kernels have most of the common wifi drivers built into the kernel so you probably won't encounter problems there.

Another idea while testing is to turn firewalls off -- although why one computer works and another doesn't --- the Wonder of Windows !!!!!!.

Good luck with it though.

Cheers
jimbo

 

That was my sense. Chalk it up to Windows networking, which is sometimes just flaky. It just felt very familiar to the experience I had at my friends clinic a few months ago where everything worked fine when wired on the network, but not when wireless. There were 2 Mac laptops that were just fine in that mix, but the windows devices were equally flaky when trying to access each other over wireless. This situation at my house felt like that, accept here, I can't even get my kids laptop to detect the other machines when I browse to network in file explorer. The only way I can get to a login prompt, is to punch in the address manually. Just infuriating.