PC Network share not showing showing within File Explorer's Network section

I have a simple LAN network, with all PCs able to see each other. All are running Windows 11 Pro with all the latest Windows updates. All PCs have unique computer names and have shares.

On one of the PCs, it is not showing another specific computer within the Network section in File Explorer. The other PCs do show this PC within File Explorer’s Network section.

However, it does show if I enter the name of the missing computer into File Explorer’s address bar, using the format \\XXXXX\, where XXXX is the computer name.

It also shows if I use Win+R and enter \\computername.

I have spent many hours over the last week trying to solve this, to no avail and run out of ideas.

Can anyone help with this issue? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hello and welcome to the forum. This little quirk actually began for some people back in Windows 10 and still exists (again for some people) in Windows 11. There seems to be no rhyme or reason why a device will not show up in the network map even when everything is optioned correctly. Even more weird, why for some (me included) it can magically fix itself.
There are many posts with tons of suggestions on this forum. Some people access a troublesome device by computer name like you, some by ip address, some using a third party app. Take a look at one such post to see how users that have the issue have worked around it.

Many thanks for the reply and for the useful link to another post about the same issue, which has some useful information. Appreciated.

It's ridiculous that so many hours are wasted in trying to sort out this long standing issue. Microsoft really needs to get their act together and fix this, especially as it has been a problem since Windows 10 and affecting so many users.

FlyingCat said:

and affecting so many users

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I think that's the key term. It doesn't affect enough users and there are so many variables involved with the ones it does affect so the pressure is not on MS to approach it as an OS problem. I wasted many precious hours on it before I gave up on networking altogether. Since all of my systems have Pro,I now rely on remote desktop along with a NAS drive attached to my router. Had I known about Advanced Ip Scanner back then I would have used it.

There is a system service advertising the computer resources on the network. If this service doesn't run, other computers don't detect this computer, but can access it with \\computername or its IP address. I am currently running Greek Windows, so I cannot easily find it and tell you which one it is.

Function Discovery Provider Host and more importantly Function Discovery Resource Publication (FDResPub) services.

glasskuter said:

This little quirk actually began for some people back in Windows 10 and still exists (again for some people) in Windows 11.

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This issue has been going on in Windows ever since LAN was invented. Nothing new.

If you install 100 machines with exactly identical hardware and use same image on all, give each machine unique computer names and their own static IP, enable network discovery...and yada yada.....there is a probability that at least 10% of the machines can't either be seen or can't see anyone else on the network.

It has been a pain for as long as I can remember and nobody can explain why...

This issue keeps reappearing and it's pretty clear there is no simple general solution, but when it affected me I added the IPs for each computer into each computer's Hosts file. That should work every time but of course you do have to use fixed IPs on your network.

fixer said:

This issue keeps reappearing and it's pretty clear there is no simple general solution, but when it affected me I added the IPs for each computer into each computer's Hosts file. That should work every time but of course you do have to use fixed IPs on your network.

Click to expand...

That was the way to go for my set up as well, (3 systems 2 W11 & 1 Win 10)