Nearby Sharing Works In One Direction Only

Hi, my first post, so be nice, please

I have a desktop (Win 11 Pro Ver 23H2) and a laptop (Win 11 Home Ver 23H2) that I want to share files between.

So I stumbled across "Nearby Sharing" having failed miserably trying to get the two networked normally.

Went through the setup procedures and got the laptop to send a document to the desktop, but it fails in the other direction saying that the "device you are trying to connect with didn't respond".

The desktop PC icon in the laptop's Share/Nearby Share window is there and "lit" (i.e. not greyed out) and it tries to send when clicked, but eventually ends with the message above.

Both computer's Nearby Sharing are set to - Everyone nearby.

I've followed all the hints and tips I can find and set or checked and it all appears correct, but still works in only the one direction.

Can anyone shed some light please.

I am an author (huh -trying to be , more like) and it would be great to pass work easily to and fro as I switch from desktop to PC depending on where I am in the house.

Many thanks in advance.

Hi, welcome

It’s not something I personally use or even like but have you considered using OneDrive?

Sharing is one thing MS has never been able to get 100% right, especially when multiple OS's are involved. It took me forever early on to get it working correctly between one 10 and two 11 systems. Even then sometimes one system wouldn't see the other or systems wouldn't show up even in its own network map, and it came and went at will. There's really no rhyme or reason to it. I did a clean install of 23h2 in one of the 11 systems and it's completely in the dirt again. I'm not sure it's worth continuing to dicker with it.

That said, @hsehestedt put together an excellent sharing checklist which I am copying below. Hopefully it will fix your issues.


Hsehesdt Sharing Checklist

Share Files and Folders Over a Network in Windows 10

Here is a checklist that I use to get networking working properly on all my machines.

Note: If you are on a Canary or beta build, I cannot guarantee that something has not changed, but consider this a good starting point.

Check these first two steps an all PCs, both those you want to connect to (the host), and those doing the connecting (the client).

1) Go to Settings > Network & internet. At the top of the screen, make sure that the computer shows Private network and NOT Public network. If it shows the network to be public, click there and change it to Private.

2) Still in Network & internet, click on Advanced network setting > Advanced sharing settings. Under the Private networks section, make sure that both Network discovery and File and printer sharing are turned on.

The following steps apply only to the host system (the system from which you are sharing files).

3) Under the same Advanced sharing settings page, go to the All networks section and set the Password protected sharing. Let me explain the behavior depending upon how you set this option:

Please note that this option ONLY affects the behavior of shares that you share with EVERYONE. If you create a share and share it with specific users and not the user called Everyone, then this option will make no difference.

ON - If you set this option to ON, then from any machine that you try to connect, you will need to specify a user name and password that is valid ON THE HOST MACHINE in order to connect to a share even if it is shared with Everyone. In other words, "Everyone" is defined as everyone who has a valid account on the host.

OFF - By setting this option to off, you are changing who Windows considers to be Everyone. When off, everyone who has access to the network will be able to connect to shares that are shared with Everyone, regardless of whether there is an account with the user name being used to connect on the host machine or not.

Recommendation: I would suggest starting with this setting OFF. Once you establish that you can successfully connect, you can get more restrictive if you wish to do so.

4) Open File Explorer and click on the kabob menu (the three horizontal dots), then select Options. Go to the View tab. Scroll down to the option called Use Sharing Wizard (Recommended).

Once again, let me explain the behavior depending upon whether you enable this option or not:

ENABLED - If you enable this option, and then share a folder, the Wizard will not only share the folder, but it will also set the NTFS file permissions on that folder and all contents to allow the users that you have granted permission access at the file level.

DISABLED - If you disable this option, then, after you create the share, you will need to manually set the NTFS permissions to grant access to those users that you granted share levevel permissions to.

Recommendation: I would suggest enabling this option. Once again, after testing and verifying that everything works as expected, you can disable this option if you require more advanced manual control.

WiFi Settings: This applies to both host and clients. I mainly use Intel WiFi adapters, but I have found that one setting in particular seems to frequently cause me grief. On systems using Intel WiFi adapters, open Device Manager and locate your WiFi adapter. Right-click that adapter and select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab. Look for a setting called Packet Coalescing. Disable that setting.

Note: I have no idea why that setting makes such a big difference, but time and again I find that this setting being enabled causes me difficulties on my local network.

glasskuter said:

On systems using Intel WiFi adapters, open Device Manager and locate your WiFi adapter. Right-click that adapter and select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab. Look for a setting called Packet Coalescing. Disable that setting.

Note: I have no idea why that setting makes such a big difference, but time and again I find that this setting being enabled causes me difficulties on my local network.

Click to expand...

The coalescing setting often causes issues if a user has Hyper-V enabled, with an external switch setup, severely disrupting Host upload and download speeds.

I have made posts on this, as you may need to disable it in a couple of drivers.

I am not aware of this setting ever causing issues if Hyper-V is not enabled, but I cannot categorically state this.
.
It is a moot point for me as I always have Hyper-V enabled.

So many thanks for your thorough and detailed replies. I've put my back out - struggling with this post, but I just had to say thank you. Will post when I've tried your suggestions once I can sit at the PC for long enough.
Dave