Network sharing broke after working many years OK

This is why on 5 of my 6 PCs I still am using 23H2. NONE of any workarounds worked for me with the exception of making shortcuts to those that Networking wouldn't see in explorer. What ever update number the change from 23H2 to 24H2 was it was what wrecked my networking.

Try3 said:

OK.
I only use Windows Home so it seems that's why I have not been affected.
Control SMB signing behaviour - MSLearn

I really wish they'd either leave the sodding OS alone or start to produce the training materials required to understand the amended ways of working required after updates.


Denis

Click to expand...

Typical Microsoft. They add a "feature" for improving security but breaking some compatibility in the process. As it would not be possible to improve security while maintaining backwards compatibility.

I just checked my laptop. I can use a shortcut to the desktop using the IP address but a shortcut using the computer name is broken again.
I am at a loss to know what to do about it. I have tried all kinds of tutorials but nothing has helped. Could the gateway router DNS server be faulty?

I tried to change the Acronis True Image backup task but they are tied to the computer name. I can't make any changes if \\DarkMatter is not available. However, I can create new backup tasks that use \\10.0.0.2 instead of \\DarkMatter. I really don't want to do that.

Open your hosts file in system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Add line:

10.0.0.2 DarkMatter

Save and close hosts

Now flushdns and then try to launch \\DarkMatter again

If you haven't already done so, run the following to reset the network stack...

netsh int tcp reset
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /flushdns

Reboot

Run ipconfig /all and get the IP of the Default Gateway

Then...

Run nslookup \\YOURNAME DefaultGatewayIP

Results should look something like this...

PS C:\Users\Jim> nslookup \\JIM-PC 192.168.1.1
Server: OpenWrt.lan
Address: 192.168.1.1

Name: JIM-PC.lan
Address: 192.168.1.102

A couple years ago I assigned Reserved IP addresses for the computers in my network. I just checked this on my router. I was perplexed to see that some of my computers including Starship had been changed to DHCP which caused them to be given a different IP address than I original had. I changed it so all my network computers have Reserved IP addresses again. That was important for the hosts file.

I have decided to put the problem computers in the hosts file. Here are the changes I made.

The DarkMatter hosts file has:
10.0.0.7 Starship

The Starship hosts file has:
10.0.0.2 DarkMatter

Hopefully with reserved IP addresses and the problem computers in host files I won't have the "not found network path" messages anymore.

Does this sound like a good workaround?

MisterEd said:

The DarkMatter hosts file has:
10.0.0.7 Starship

The Starship hosts file has:
10.0.0.2 DarkMatter

Hopefully with reserved IP addresses and the problem computers in host files I won't have the "not found network path" messages anymore.

Does this sound like a good workaround?

Click to expand...

If they do, you’d have a more serious problem as it would have to modify your hosts file to do so…

To summarize network names like \\Darkmatter work for less than hour after booting. Then all of sudden all three of my Windows 11 computers develop amnesia. Trying to access a network name gives the error "network path not found". Accessing the computer by its IP address usually works. I thought that DNS was supposed to handle network name to IP address translation! Note network names on all my Windows 10 computers work just fine.

I haven't had a response since last week. Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to fix Windows 11 networking?

BTW, as a workaround I have added the following to the hosts file of all three Windows 11 computers. Doing this seems to do what DNS was supposed to.

10.0.0.2 DarkMatter
10.0.0.3 Lightning
10.0.0.7 Starship

Click to expand...

MisterEd said:

Hopefully with reserved IP addresses and the problem computers in host files I won't have the "not found network path" messages anymore.

Click to expand...

So setting reserved IP addresses didn't work? If you comment out the host file entries and do ipconfig /flushdns, does each computer have the correct addresses for the others when you do nslookup <computername>?