Question File Explorer won't show NAS or other computers, only media devices

kep55

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For some reason Windows Explorer is only showing my NAS devices and other computers as Media devices. Previously it showed all of the devices under "Computers". It bad enough that Explorer claims the one NAS has nothing but empty folders when in fact it's holding almost a terabyte of data, but to completely "delete" all units from being seen? This is occurring on both my Win 7 desktop and my Win10 laptop. Ran NetBScanner from the Win10 and only it was found. I wonder if the router has crapped out. Again.
 
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kep55

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Update again. Win10 box can see the NAS devices but say all the folders are empty. Ran nbtstat -a for each NAS and PC and the NetBIOS shows the names of all of them but the command also says "Host not found".
 

kep55

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Update 2: Error message -

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Services
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Windows could not start the Computer Browser service on Local Computer.
Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start.
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Computer Browser Properties set to Automatic Startup.

Dependency Services - Workstation

Browser Support Driver
SMB1.x Miniredirector
SMB MiniRedirector Wrapper & Engine
Redirected Buffering Sub System
Mup

SMB 2.0 MiniRedirector
SMB MiniRedirector Wrapper & Engine
Redirected Buffering Sub System
Mup

In addition, every time I look file and printer sharing it's set to do not share EVEN THO' I SET IT TO SHARE.
What now? Should any references to SMB1 & SMB2 be deleted from Registry?
 

kep55

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Update 3 - I'm beginning to think the problem lies in the POS router supplied by that POS Frontier Communications. I cranked up my MacPro running OSX 10.8. Guess what? even though it could see two of the three NAS, it couldn't load the files at all from the one NAS and only from the Public folder on the other. I'm in the process of downloading Linux Mint just to see if it has the same problems.
 

kep55

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It's set as "Home" network. I built a "live" Linux Mint USB drive and ran Mint. Guess what? Every drive, every folder and every file showed up. I realized also that my MacPro, being in the basement, was having a hard time getting a wireless signal from the POS Netgear D2000 modem my ISP provides. It did show every drive and every folder and some of the files. Interestingly enough. every time I go to the Sharing window, file and printer sharing is turned OFF. I set it to ON and close the window. Next time I open the window, it's set to off. Also, when I go to network and sharing center even though the main window says it's a Home network the options window shows it as Public.
 
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kanewolf

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It's set as "Home" network. I built a "live" Linux Mint USB drive and ran Mint. Guess what? Every drive, every folder and every file showed up. I realized also that my MacPro, being in the basement, was having a hard time getting a wireless signal from the POS Netgear D2000 modem my ISP provides. It did show every drive and every folder and some of the files. Interestingly enough. every time I go to the Sharing window, file and printer sharing is turned OFF. I set it to ON and close the window. Next time I open the window, it's set to off. Also, when I go to network and sharing center even though the main window says it's a Home network the options window shows it as Public.
The fact that it is "Public" may be your problem. Follow the link I provided above and change it to a "Private" network.
 

kep55

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Uninstalled the last two (April) updates on my Win 10 box and guess what? I could see the NAS drives, open the NAS drives, and see the files and folders. Hmmm...Could it possibly be the updates hosed my network? Now to see if the same happens with Win 7. Still can't see the networked computers, tho'.