No, I really do want to delete my homegroup

I have two machines on my home network that are running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. A month ago, I bought a new hard disk and (yet another) copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, and tried to upgrade my Dell D620, but eventually gave up after struggling to get it to work with my KVM switch (long story there), and reverted back to Windows XP on the Dell.

However, while I was running Win7 on the Dell, I created a Homegroup. At some point after that, in a last ditch attempt to get Windows 7 to play nice with the KVM switch, I re-installed Windows7 from scratch.

Now both of my remaining Win7 machines see the Homegroup that was created, and I have the choice to join it. However, I can't get the password, because it was blown away when I re-installed Windows, and for the same reason I can't delete the Homegroup by Leaving it (since the one computer that's a member no longer exists).

Anybody have any ideas? I'd like to either delete this Homegroup so I can establish a new one, or figure out a way to take it over, but so far I haven't been able to find anything on the web about getting rid of a ghost Homegroup.

jeverett said:

I have two machines on my home network that are running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. A month ago, I bought a new hard disk and (yet another) copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, and tried to upgrade my Dell D620, but eventually gave up after struggling to get it to work with my KVM switch (long story there), and reverted back to Windows XP on the Dell.

However, while I was running Win7 on the Dell, I created a Homegroup. At some point after that, in a last ditch attempt to get Windows 7 to play nice with the KVM switch, I re-installed Windows7 from scratch.

Now both of my remaining Win7 machines see the Homegroup that was created, and I have the choice to join it. However, I can't get the password, because it was blown away when I re-installed Windows, and for the same reason I can't delete the Homegroup by Leaving it (since the one computer that's a member no longer exists).

Anybody have any ideas? I'd like to either delete this Homegroup so I can establish a new one, or figure out a way to take it over, but so far I haven't been able to find anything on the web about getting rid of a ghost Homegroup.

Easy workaround is to create new network connection using "workgroup" instead of homegroup. The disable IPv6 and that effectively kills the homegroup




Ken

jeverett said:

I have two machines on my home network that are running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. A month ago, I bought a new hard disk and (yet another) copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, and tried to upgrade my Dell D620, but eventually gave up after struggling to get it to work with my KVM switch (long story there), and reverted back to Windows XP on the Dell.

However, while I was running Win7 on the Dell, I created a Homegroup. At some point after that, in a last ditch attempt to get Windows 7 to play nice with the KVM switch, I re-installed Windows7 from scratch.

Now both of my remaining Win7 machines see the Homegroup that was created, and I have the choice to join it. However, I can't get the password, because it was blown away when I re-installed Windows, and for the same reason I can't delete the Homegroup by Leaving it (since the one computer that's a member no longer exists).

Anybody have any ideas? I'd like to either delete this Homegroup so I can establish a new one, or figure out a way to take it over, but so far I haven't been able to find anything on the web about getting rid of a ghost Homegroup.

The fix for this problem seems to be Deleting the file idstore.sst under C:\windows\serviceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Roaming\PeerNetworking

Once everything at peer Networking Grouping is running you may also need to do this...

Start the Task Manager
Click on the service Tab
Find the "HomeGroupProvider"
and then stop the service.


You may need to go back into services and enable Peernetworking again after the fix. Don't forget to restart all machines making the adjustments.