home network shares invisible after upgrading from win10 to win11.

I have systems A and B on my home network, they each have folders shared with the other. i upgraded them to win11 and everything is working except now they cannot share folders. I did a few hours of troubleshooting with chatgpt and copilot but it seemed like it was just throwing ideas at the wall, nothing worked. So I asked it to summarize my case so I could post about it here for some human input, here is its summary. Any advice is welcome, thanks.

SMB auth failure between two Win11 LAN hosts​

Two Win11 PCs (same HOME workgroup, 192.168.50.x) can ping and see each other normally, but SMB auth always fails.

What Works​

• Ping both directions OK
• nbtstat -A resolves names + MAC correctly
• net view \\localhost works on both machines
• SMB2 enabled, SMB1 disabled
• Shares exist and are visible locally

What Fails

• \\host\share and \\ip\share → ask for password then say its the wrong password
• net use \\host\IPC$ /user:Dad → error 1326

Logs

• Event ID 4625
• Logon Type 3
• NTLM (NtLmSsp)
• Status: 0xC000006A (bad password)

Notes

• Accounts exist locally on both machines (“Dad”, admin)
• NetBIOS and name resolution confirmed working
• Firewall ruled out
• Issue isolated to NTLM SMB authentication only

Do you have
1
a network problem
or
2 the common File explorer problem of shares not being displayed in its Network section?

Try entering the target computer & folder address in the File explorer address bar e.g.
\\TargetComputerName\SharedFolderName
If this works then you do not have a network problem.

This is how I set up & check my network:-
A consolidated network setup checklist for Windows 10 and 11 - my post #4 - TenForums


Denis

Try3 said:

Try entering the target computer & folder address in the File explorer address bar e.g.
\\TargetComputerName\SharedFolderName
If this works then you do not have a network problem.

Click to expand...

if i type \\targetcomputer\sharedfolder in explorer it brings up the "Enter Network Credentials" dialogue. I put in my account name and password and it replies in yellow "The specified network password is not correct" even though it is correct

Are either of these machines a clone of the other?

johnhoh said:

if i type \\targetcomputer\sharedfolder in explorer it brings up the "Enter Network Credentials" dialogue. I put in my account name and password and it replies in yellow "The specified network password is not correct" even though it is correct

Click to expand...

Are you logged in to your system via a PIN (MS account) or is your account strictly local?
if PIN is used, you need to use MicrosoftAccount/[email protected] as a user.

HTA - yes they started as win10 clones of each other then upgraded to w11 separately. OAT - local login only

Things to try:

Computers not seen in network map
Do this on all systems in network..

add "LanmanWorkstation" as an additional startup dependency for the "Function Discovery Resource Publication" (FDResPub) service, which seems to do the trick. To do this, you simply open an elevated command prompt (i.e. use the "run as administrator" right-click context menu option to start cmd.exe), then execute the following command:

sc config fdrespub depend= RpcSs/http/fdphost/LanmanWorkstation

Reboot each device after executing this command, and the devices should see each other more reliably in Network and File Manager.

Make sure these services are set to automatic and running

DNS-Client – Server
Function Discovery Provider Host
Function Discovery Resource Publication
SSDP Discovery
UPNP Device Host

If they are still not seen in network map, access by ip address instead.

• Open File Explorer.
• In the address bar, type the following: \\computername (replace "computername" with the name of the computer you're connecting to).
• Press Enter.
• Note: You can also use ip address in address bar but if you do assign your devices static ip addresses because they will not always be assigned the same ip address by the router.
• Whichever of these methods allows you to get to the other machine, create a shortcut to it on desktop, and pin that shortcut to quick access. You can then delete the shortcut from desktop.

CREATE A WINDOWS CREDENTIAL.
All kinds of networking issues are a result of Microsoft tightening security for Windows 11 24h2 and above.

Create a Windows credential for an account & password on all computers on your network you are sharing files between. It must be a password, not a pin. While you can still use a pin to login to the device, you must restart the device and log into it using a password at least once for this to work.
Even if you are using the same MS account on both devices, a credential should be created.

In other words, Each computer should have a credential for each of the other computers it is sharing files or printers to/from.

To create a credential:
Go to Control Panel>Credentials> Windows Credentials>add a windows credential
In the "Internet or network address" box, type the name of the computer on the network that you want to access.
In the User name and Password boxes, type the user name and password that you use for that computer, and then click OK.