File Explorer Not Showing Network Properly

I have two Win 11 Home 64 bit laptops and one Win 10 Home 64 bit laptop networked together. All my file and folder shares work and I am able to map all the drives I need on all machines. The Network Pane and the Navigation pane in File Explorer on the Win 10 laptop and one of the Win 11 laptops show all the devices on the network just fine. The other Win 11 laptop shows everything except itself and its shared folders. It shows them on neither the Network Pane nor the Navigation Pane. I have checked the settings in the Network and Sharing Center on both Laptops and they are identical. Both Win 11 laptops have the latest build of Win 11 installed with all updates- they were installed from the same ISO file. This problem shows up with both File Explorer and with several File Explorer replacements I have tried. I have no problem accessing anything, it’s just a little more difficult to do on this one laptop. It’s just very weird that this laptop will not show itself in its own File Explorer.



Can anyone help?

If you cannot see the computer on the network, but you can access it by typing
\\computername\sharedfolder
then the computer simply doesn't report itself on the network. There is a service to force the computer advertise its resources to the network, but unfortunately cannot find it now. Search for Services, open it and go down the list on the manual or disabled services no currently running. There is a short description in each. Once you find the appropriate service run it and check again. If successful configure this service to run automatically. Sorry, I don't recall its name right now.

EDIT: I think I found it, look for "Function Discovery Resource Publication" and enable it. Of course I assume you already have enabled computer discovery on the network.

Windows 10 has been plagued by this for ages and your report means that Windows 11 also seems to be.

As spakakons said, if you can access the shared folders using \\ComputerName then it is not a network fault as such but a shortcoming in the mechanism File explorer uses to see network shares.

Since, like you, I have network shares mapped or set up in shortcuts, I just don't use that part of File explorer to display shared folders any more.

All the best,
Denis

I looked at the services, and both the one mentioned and its allied service Function Discovery Provider Host were enabled and running. I tried stopping and restarting both services, but that didn't change things.

I have long suspected that File Explorer was the problem, as I have experienced other problems with it on both Win 11 computers. Thank you both for trying to help.

I would then check for access rights of the shared resources. Unless you want only specific users to access the resource, I would add the "Everyone" so any user can access it. To simplify things I would also turn off password connection in Advanced Sharing settings, so you don't need to provide credentials to connect. Make sure all settings are the same for both computers.

It is set up this way. There is no problem accessing anything on this computer from anyone else on the network, just getting things on this computer to appear in its own File Explorer.