Not clear what you mean by "see". If you mean network discovery on the laptop doesn't show the desktop then I suggest you try adding a "network location" for the share (or for each of the shares if several) on the desktop. Gives access for most purposes.
I'd rather have the desktop PC visible in network on the laptop. Same as this has always worked here. Click on that, and I get a menu of all the files etc set to share.
Using the best guide I found by Googling (other than those who wanted you to install their prog for sharing), the final tip was to use the reg.editor to go to:-
and create (if not there) a new DWORD (32bit) and call it AllowInsecureGuestAuth. Set value to 1, and base to decimal. Except here, it changes itself back to hexadecimal.
Have you checked that the laptop does not think its wifi connection is a "public" one? That will block most attempts to make inbound connections or to even announce itself on the network.
(you can check if you click on your wifi icon on the taskbar, locate your connection and click it. Click the "Properties" link. Check network profile is set to Private)
We had a "quote board" in one lab where I worked - festooned with famous "dumb" quotes. One of which was from a chap asking "Yes, but is that a 1 in hex or a 1 in decimal?"
You can change a WORKGROUP=workgroup setting from Powershell (plus a reboot). But I can also understand, that domain join is a Windows Pro or higher sku kind of thing. Maybe doing this from Admin Powershell, will be rejected on Win10 Home.
formatting link
To scope out your local network, you can use a scanner.
You can survey the network with:
formatting link
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nbtscan 192.168.1.0/24 <=== define IP and netmask to suit [example scans 256 addresses]
192.168.1.29 WORKGROUP\BOB SHARING 192.168.1.57 WORKGROUP\BLUEWAVE SHARING *timeout (normal end of scan)
There, you can see they both belong to workgroup = WORKGROUP.
That's hardly likely to be the reason, because there are file sharing settings (the dialog that appears some times claiming it isn't enabled yet). Something like that could be causing it to fail. The "private" versus "public" setting thing.
To contact a Windows XP PC from Windows 10, you need the Programs and Features : Windows features SMB 1.0 items turned on. For mixed W7/W8/W10, they should be able to use SMB 2 or SMB 3 connections.
There are two services in services.msc their names begin with the word "Function", and one of those handles nameserving for W7/W8/W10. Those used to be there for HomeGroups, but they are still needed for Workgroups/SMB/CIFS to work.
Covered in the first thing in the article I followed. All my PCs are configured the same - but only the newest and most expensive Dell laptop has the problem.
You can vet the entire subnet with nbtscan, in one go, and avoid the monotony of ping.
Nbtscan is good if things are "mostly right", and you want to quickly verify everything that should be registering, is present.
nbtscan should show the name of each machine, and what group it's in.
The two services in services.msc that begin with the word "Function" should be in running state, for file sharing by name to work.
You can do file sharing by IP address as well.
For example, in Linux (because it's easier to see the syntax), you would do this to try to reach a Windows machine and log into the share. Yes, the program names are wacky, and an acquired taste.
nemo smb://192.168.1.23/SHAREDISK
nemo smb://bob/SHAREDISK
thunar smb://192.168.1.23/SHAREDISK
thunar smb://bob/SHAREDISK
You can type strings like that into File Explorer
\\192.168.1.23\SHAREDISK
\\bob\SHAREDISK
The IP method works more often than the name does. Sometime the name does not resolve. The Network Browser should be keeping track of the names, as new machines come online and register with the browser.
If it's a name-related problem, then using the IP address should work. You would also try using the IP address method, if the nbtscan indicated some machines simply could not be seen at the moment for some reason.
You can also make mistakes when cascading routers, such that subtending nodes off one router, cannot "see" nodes on the other router. Yet, all machines can surf the web (because the WAN direction always works in those shitty situations).
I've got two Win 10 desktops on my LAN. One cabled, one Wi-Fi. Both OK for filesharing between themsleves. And both can access the laptop too. The laptop can find the one on Wi-Fi, but not the cabled one. And it's the cabled one I want to share with most. The Wi-Fi connected one is mainly just an AV server.
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