I’ve spent far too long struggling with home networking in Windows, so after a brief sojourn and more extensive research, I discovered that a Windows Update in 24H2 had broken this feature. I don’t know exactly which update it was, so along with thousands of other users, we’ve had to revert to what I term as ‘ghetto mods’ for home networking to function correctly. But this is not simply isolated to networking because this is what Windows has now become – a struggle in more ways than one. I’m always up for a challenge, but not to the point of pulling my hair out.
More Partial Success
As mentioned in my previous article, My Struggles Setting Up A Windows 11 Home Network – Part One and illustrated in the above schematic, computer B remained the most obstinate with no rhyme or reason to it, especially seeing as all three computers have exactly the same configuration. So you can imagine my surprise when computer A mysteriously found a shared folder on computer B when it had obstinately refused to do so previously. However, computer B still throws up an error when I point it to the other two.
One could ask, “Why am I spending so much time on this pain in the rear?” I use computers B and C for converting VHS tapes to digital, and all three have different uses, so being able to move files about and to share them between machines is very convenient. After all, that’s what home networking is all about, isn’t it?
I also write on several machines, so one could ask, why not rely on the cloud or Nearby Sharing, which was suggested to me by fellow author Jim Hillier. Indeed, I do use OneDrive as part of my family subscription, and I have yet to try Nearby Sharing, which no doubt I’ll play with later. For the moment, I do at least have a more satisfactory home networking setup.
However, I have now reached a point in my struggles with home networking where it’s time to cease the torture, despite being able to allow insecure guest logons, which I’m reluctant to do. Yes, I have tried it, and all three machines talk to each other with all shared folders being available. But who else would have access to my computers? That’s a question to which I haven’t yet been able to find an answer.
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