I've made my Win 10 computer discoverable on the network supposedly, and also shared that particular folder, yet on the Windows 11 machine I still can't see my Win 10 desktop nor the shared folder. What's the secret? Do I have to reboot the Windows 11 machine or both?
I've shared a folder on my Win 11 desktop to my Win 10 one, but how to do the reverse?
- Thread starter Papageno
- Start date
Are they both set so the networks are "private" instead of "public"? That always has trouble sticking, even when they haven't changed networks.
Save yourself days or weeks of pain and use a USB drive or a NAS. Maybe your router has a USB port where you can connect a drive and share it. Millions of times easier. Windows file sharing is still a nightmare unless your home network is perfect and unchanging. Plus wifi sucks if you want to transfer a lot of data reliably.
I'll check. I've never understood why Windows defaults to "public" when the vast majority of times people are trying to share on their LAN only. I don't think I changed the default.
I don't know what SMB is. There are no other shares on the network apart from my old TiVo for some reason (appears as TiVo NADA) and ArcherA9v6 which refers no doubt to my router.
As to a username and password, I would assume that it would simply require my system login credentials on that machine (if I could see the folder), no? Basically, I want to be able to drop stuff into the folder on the old computer and have it start transferring to that folder immediately, much like I've got a folder set up on this new one that I can see from my old computer's desktop.
Wi-Fi is just a bit slower; other than that it's fine. I set up a shared folder on a USB drive on my desktop where I store its backups, and run backups from my laptop to that share over Wi-Fi, and it works fine. Takes a little longer but about 30 gigs doesn't give me any problems, and it's storing it in a single image file format not just copying individual files. I suppose if you had a low-speed connection and a lot of interference and competing networks on top of that it wouldn't be a great way to do it. The only issue I foresee is Windows just randomly deciding that it's on a new network for absolutely no reason and having to browse in order to change it to a private network again. That will almost certainly happen in a couple of weeks when I move and am setting up the network on the new ISP's router even though I'll use the same access point.
Windows 10 and 11 both use SMB v3 by default when acting as the server, with v2 as a fallback, and can connect to either version as a client (but requires signing). You have to make a concerted effort to get v1 to be used for client or server. Since it doesn't sound like OP would have ever gone that deep since it would have required enough knowledge to know how to resolve these issues, I would give the chances of there being an SMB version issue the same odds as every woman in America giving birth to identical triplets on July 4th this year, even if they aren't pregnant today. It would also at least show the machine on the network and even let you see the share names regardless of username/password (though Windows 11 won't actually open a share using guest credentials by default after a certain build).
Security. By default, inbound connections should always be blocked, no matter what, because it can't know for sure whether you're on a private LAN or if the outside world has access. It would make more sense though if they prompted you to change it if you explicitly were turning on shares, instead of requiring you to dig to change it. At least Windows 7 prompted you the first time you connected to a network, even though it might later change it without informing you. (10 and 11 seem less reliable about prompting.)
The easiest way to change it is to just open File Explorer and click on Network to browse, and if it's Public you'll get a prompt bar at the top about turning on sharing. On rare occasions, it can be set to Private but still have sharing disabled, and you have to go into the sharing settings to change it then.
As to credentials, yes, as long as you have a username and password configured on the computer, and didn't take the extra steps necessary to share using guest credentials, it will just prompt you. (Though if you use the same credentials on both, it won't prompt. And if you use the same username on both but different passwords, it won't work without manually storing the right credentials in Credential Manager.)
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Okay, maybe this is the root of the problem: According to the network and sharing center on the Windows 10 machine, my Wifi network (which is its only network access) is a public one, but according to the network and sharing center on my Windows 11 machine (with an ethernet connection to my router) it's a private one. Could that be it?* I can't make the Win10 computer nor its folder be seen at all on this Win 11 machine. Maybe I need to reboot the Windows 10 one?
*YEP, sure enough, that was it. Once I found the screen where I could change the designation of the network I was all good.
Thanks to all for the replies and ideas.
*YEP, sure enough, that was it. Once I found the screen where I could change the designation of the network I was all good.
Thanks to all for the replies and ideas.
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