[SOLVED] HomeGroup workaround in Win 10?

dg27

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Nov 7, 2010
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I just installed Win 10 Pro on my primary desktop, replacing Win 7 Pro.

Prior to this I had a Home Group set up with two desktops, one laptop, one NAS drive, and one streaming device that I could access from any of the PCs.

I just learned the hard way that Home Groups were eliminated in Win 10.

Is there a workaround?

Right now I can see all the devices from my desktop, but can't access any of them . My NAS is attached to the router. My machine sees the router, but not the NAS.

And I can't even see the name of that network anywhere.
 

dg27

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I went through these options one by by one over the past two weeks.

I'm on Win 10 Pro. There are two other machines in the network, both Win 7.

Here is where I am now.

Both Windows 7 machines can now see and access all files and drives that are shared on the Win 10 machine.

The Win 10 machine sees the the Win 7 machines as media servers and can access media only.

The Win 10 machine sees the Win 7 machines listed under Network, but cannot access either of them. I get the error:


Windows cannot access \\computer name

You do not have permission to access \\computer name. Contact your network administrator to request access.


How do I "request access? I have already shared everything I want to share on the Win 7 machines with "Everyone."

I'm losing my mind trying to fix this.

Update: I tried pinging one of the Win 7 machines from the Win 10 machine using both the IP address and the computer name and got a "could not find host" error.

Any ideas?
 
Last edited:

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
In Windows 10 under the network control panel, change advanced sharing settings, all networks (the last group down) did you turn on public folder sharing and turn off password protected sharing -- this last item only allows user accounts on that specific computer to see other attached devices without a password.

This is a new setting to Windows 10 that was not on WIndows 7 or earlier and is usually the last issue that will allow sharing by users of the W10 machine looking at the W7 machines.
 

dg27

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Not sure you saw my update, which may be relevant:

Update: I tried pinging one of the Win 7 machines from the Win 10 machine using both the IP address and the computer name and got a "could not find host" error.