Issues with sharing ethernet PC and Wi-fi laptop

[biw]

Hello,

Been reading this forum for information through the years but have now encountered a problem that I can't seem to find the answer to.

What I want to achieve:
Connect my desktop PC to my laptop to enable sharing between drives etc.
Seems easy enough right?

Problem:
My internet two both devices is provided by my Android smartphone that I connect by USB-sharing to my desktop (because it does not have Wi-fi) while at the same time sharing Wi-fi from the smartphone to my laptop. Both computers are connected to the same network but I can't seem to be able to discover the computers from one another.
I have file sharing enabled for the networks, and have tried the advanced sharing in Windows 10 to share my drives, but when I try to "map network drive" it can not connect. I have tried both using the PC-name and the IP-address.

I have also tried setting static IP's on both computers but they still can't communicate. I tried pinging the other IP and got a response. When I set a static IP however, only the gateways could be pinged.
I have also tried naming the computers with all caps letters.
The other computers still do not show up in "Networks" in the file explorer.

My desktop is a HP Z400 workstation connected by USB internet sharing from my smartphone.
My laptop is an Asus F556UQ connected by Wi-fi to the same shared network.
Both computers are using Windows 10.

Would really appreciate if anyone has any ideas to what might be the problem...
Is it even possible to create a local network between two devices connected in this way with USB and Wi-fi internet sharing? I have created ad-hoc networks before with the same Android internet sharing, but that was between two laptops over Wi-fi.

Thanks,
biw

 

[jsmithepa]

Well u don't have a standard broadband home LAN, but I want to say jury-rigged via cellular Internet, so a jumble to be dissected with patience to understand it but am glad it works for you.

From the top of my head when people say "can't discover" it often suggests devices are on separate subnets. A second possibility is, you are on the same subnet but a device in the middle is blocking netbios, the mechanism Windows uses to allow plain text discovery, but u should still able to connect to remote by \\remote-PC-IP. That's all I have to contribute at the moment.

 

[biw]

Well u don't have a standard broadband home LAN, but I want to say jury-rigged via cellular Internet, so a jumble to be dissected with patience to understand it but am glad it works for you.

From the top of my head when people say "can't discover" it often suggests devices are on separate subnets. A second possibility is, you are on the same subnet but a device in the middle is blocking netbios, the mechanism Windows uses to allow plain text discovery, but u should still able to connect to remote by \\remote-PC-IP. That's all I have to contribute at the moment.

Thank you for answering.
Yeah, I know it's not ideal to rely on cellular internet, but it's my only option at the moment. It has decent speed and unlimited data so it's been working for what I need during my engineering studies. I was actually quite surprised to see it was actually possible to share the connection with both USB and W-fi at the same time.

Both computers use the same subnet mask, if that is what you are referring to?
Is there a way to check if this netbios thing is the problem?

Thanks