Windows Explorer doesn't find systems on home LAN

[TakuSkan]

Every once in a while I open up Win7's Windows Explorer, click Network, and it refuses to display the 2 other systems on my home LAN.. both Win10 PCs. Win10's File Explorer on my notebook sees both the Win7 PC and Win10 PC. File Explorer on the Win10 PC sees neither of the 2 other systems. It's been doing this for a few days, and I've not made any changes to the OS or old Netgear router recently.

However when I pull down Windows Explorer's address bar and type in the name of another system on the network, \\[SYSTEM NAME], the shared folders pop up fine. That's great for most work I do. But some applications like Notebook++ don't provide Explorer style interface when for example with Notepad++ I need to use the "Find in Files" function and click the "Directory" button to navigate to the remote system. In there the menu to browse the network, like the Network option Windows Explorer doesn't see any other PCs on the network.

Is this something simple my searches have yet to find a solution for?

Thanks for any feedback on this.

 

[samuria]

Windows doesnt look for pc on the local subnet it asks the master browser if you turn a pc off its removed from the list and when turned on can take 20+ mins to be found. Often pinging other pc can kick it into life

 

[TakuSkan]

Windows doesnt look for pc on the local subnet it asks the master browser if you turn a pc off its removed from the list and when turned on can take 20+ mins to be found. Often pinging other pc can kick it into life

Thanks for the input samura. I've had all systems running for 3-4 hours now, but the Win7 system still doesn't see any other PCs. I've had the command prompt opened on both the Win7 and Win10 PCs, pinging each other from time to time, and still they don't show up in their respective Windows/File Explorer under Network. Frustrating. :banghead:

 

[samuria]

Is netbios running on all PC's? Can you connect via \\pcnameor IP

 

[RolandJS]

Am I old or what? I have not heard of my old friend netbios for years! Does Windows 7 Professional still have an active netbios?

 

[TakuSkan]

Is netbios running on all PC's? Can you connect via \\pcnameor IP

Yes. As I pointed out in my 1st post, I can pull down Windows Explorer's address bar and enter the name of a remote system, \\[System Name] and all shared directories on that system will indeed be listed. But again, my problem is that some applications like Notepad++ do not provide a navigation interface similar to Windows Explorer.

This is what Notepad++ opens to navigate. When I select the Network option at the top, it only lists the local system, folders & files. There's no way to type in the name/address of a remote system.

EDIT: Yes. Netbios is enabled. This from my Win10 notebook:

Same for the Win10 PC

 

[samuria]

In the last photo NetBIOS should be set to NetBIOS over trip. It provides name resolution on local subnet must be set on all PC's

 

[TakuSkan]

In the last photo NetBIOS should be set to NetBIOS over trip. It provides name resolution on local subnet must be set on all PC's

Still no joy.

 

[TakuSkan]

I found an old post you replied to on this issue samuria:

10 mins is about average time to get updated. There isn't a simple solution as mb can change at anytime. Simple things like pinging from the PC connecting to network resources restarting browser service. All are a bit of a mess it's all a bit of pot look as it may update every 10 mins so you could be lucky and it could rescan as you connect or it could be 10 mins if you miss. It only applies to NetBIOS scans you can connect straight away via IP

You can bypass it if you assign every pc a fixed ip then add all entries to host file on every pc so it wont need to use netbios then netbios is basically local dns

I think I can get the info from ipconfig to configure 'IP address', 'Subnet mask' and 'Default gateway' for IPv4 in each PC's network adapter settings. Something like this I think:

IP address: 192.168.1.4
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.1.1

But how would I go about setting up a host file on each PC? I'm guessing I may have to tweak all of that if I ever have to reboot my router, or the power goes down and the router reboots when it comes back on, and assigns new addresses

 

[samuria]

if you set static ip and router reboots it doesnt effect it in any way edit the host file How to Edit the Hosts File in Windows 10

 

[TakuSkan]

I set static IPs in each system's network adapter settings as I wrote above, and put these in each system's host file:

192.168.1.4 [hostname PC1]
192.168.1.6 [hostname PC2]
192.168.1.9 [hostname PC3]

Rebooted each several times and they still wouldn't report seeing each other properly. I've given up. Windows just seems to have it's own mind whatever I do.