Windows 7: Homegroup Not showing all PC's on one machine in Homegroup icon

I have a desktop and laptop both with WIN 7 and both with the same User ID.

Both machines say "Joined" under Homegroup when I click on Network & Sharing Center.

On the dtop in Windows Explorer the "HOMEGROUP" icon shows no other Homegroup connected machines but both machines are displayed there under the "NETWORK" icon.Clicking the "HOMEGROUP" icon here gives the message "No other Homegroup computers are currently available"
Because of this , if I want to "see" Libraries on the ltop from the dtop I have to click the ltop icon on "NETWORK"

The "HOMEGROUP" icon on the ltop is expandable to show both P.C.'s

In spite of this I am able to "see" files across this network as long as I accept this difference between the "HOMEGROUP" icons on the dtop.

Can anyone explain why my dtop "HOMEGROUP" icon is limited in this way ?

Hi,

When you set up the HOMEGROUP did you set the Desktop machine to join by entering the password given from the laptop?

In order for Homegroup machines to show up they have to be sharing some folders from the Homegroup. Remember that the machine you are viewing from won't show up on that list, just the other Homegroup machines in the network show up there.

So for the problem PC you would need to go into the sharing and permissions and allow at least one of the Homegroup folders to be shared.
Sharing and Permissions

Other times you sometimes need to set certain services to automatic which should help make your machine appear on the Homegroup list of the other machine.

First open a command prompt and type in services.msc then hit enter. Scroll down the list and locate the following services.

Right click the sevice, go to properties, make sure that all these services are started then Set to Automatic> DNS Client, Function Discovery Resource Publication, SSDP Discovery, Peer Networking Grouping,UPnP Device Host services, Homegroup listener, Homegroup provider.

I think I did it the other way round , i.e. I set the laptop to join by entering the password given by the desktop but I'm afraid I cannot remember exactly in which order I did it.
I suppose , if I wanted to investigate this further, I could remove both PC'S and re-do the join-up?

But , surely , if that were a true description of what is likely to happen here then I would get the following :-

If looking at dtop from ltop and clicking on Homegroup icon on ltop this icon would "open " to show icon for dtop. That does happen OK.
If looking at ltop from dtop and clicking on Homegroup icon on dtop , this icon would "open" to show ltop. That does not happen. The Homegroup icon here does not "open"

I did this action with the Documents folder on the dtop. I did not change the appearance of the Homegroup icon nor its ability to "open " to reveal the ltop.

I suppose its no big deal as I am still able to share the contents across the Homegroup. Its just that I'm curious at this difference between the Homegroup icon on both machines.Both these icons , by the way , have a litle "+" mark proceeding them which led me to believe that clicking this would result in the icon expanding . As I say , this happens only on one PC.


I found several of these services set on MANUAL by the way , but having set them all to AUTOMATIC hasn't changed anything here.