My Mini PC and 24H2

This morning I had a need to access my Mini PC that I use for streaming my media content. To my surprise Windows 11 24H2 was downloaded and waiting for a restart. I didn't know that the BeeLink Mini was 24H2 compatible. The upgrade was successful on the first try. The only problem I had was accessing the shared drive on the mini computer from my desktops. I could access the mini in File Explorer by typing in \\computername. I checcked the mini pc and the Group Policy setting was applied. I had to change the group policy setting on both of my desktops. After making the changes I restated both of my desktops only to find that my mini still wasn't listed. The change had already made on the mini but it didn't work until I restarted the mini pc. All three computers are running Windows 11. My main PC is running 24H2, the second desktop is running the latest Canary build and the mini pc is now running 24H2. All three computers are using the same User name and password. I'm curious to know why the mini became invisible but could be accessed by typing in the device address. Does anyone know why the computer didn't show under Network?

Winuser said:

I'm curious to know why the mini became invisible but could be accessed by typing in the device address. Does anyone know why the computer didn't show under Network?

Click to expand...

Probably because 24H2.
Been seeing a lot of network related threads in regards to 24H2.

If the BeeLink is simply used as a media server, I’d of stayed on 23H2. Unless the OS ceases to work (one day), I can’t see a reason to go to 24H2.

Every time I see Lady Godiva mention something related to 24H2 and networking, this is what I most often see.

pseymour said:

You may need to disable SMB signing on the Windows 11 device. Open PowerShell with administrator rights, and

Powershell:

Set-SmbClientConfiguration -RequireSecuritySignature $false -Force
Set-SmbServerConfiguration -RequireSecuritySignature $false -Force

Click to expand...

Is the network on the Mini set to Public? You'll be invisible if it is. I believe that's the default on 24H2. Because it's public, you can't be seen by browsing for security reasons. But you can still hook up if you know the computer name.

Sounds like what you have.

Otherwise, there are some long threads here with ideas for network issues like @antspants mentioned.

Windows behaves differently if you use an IP address vs a name. With a name, you are (probably) using Kerberos; with an IP address, it's NTLM. That's why we high-falutin IT folks are warned not to use IP addresses with signing.