Setting the network name at install

I have a small home network that consists of five Windows computers, mostly connected by ethernet. For the longest time, I've had trouble getting the computers to be recognized consistently. Yesterday, I was replacing one of my Windows 11 with Windows 10 (because of an application issue) and I could not make the network see this windows 10 computer. It was obviously there (pingable and all), but it would not show up in the file explorer even though I had gone to the system settings and enabled all the sharing options. What I finally realized was that the computers all had different names for their network connections. When I went into the group policy editor and changed the network names to be the same on all machines, voila, everything worked. I feel like a fool because I've fought this problem for years. My question is, on Windows install, either 10 or 11, where or when does one get the chance to name the network and why doesn't the installation procedure automatically latch on to whatever the right network name is?

The simple answer is Windows install doesn't allow you to name any wired networks. You can add unattended or Post-Setup commands to script a network rename, but there's no basis in the default Setup to do this.

The closest thing is during OOBE, for a WiFi-enabled PC, it will ask you to identify a nearby network and automatically add it for you.

As it turns out, I still have one computer that the other computers cannot see on the network. Any advice?

That could be anything... Network sharing not set up correctly, wrong permissions (private vs public network), default gateway or routing issues, NAT'ing. It's an open-ended question.

I did a network reset on the one computer and that got it working. It should not be this difficult.

The problem continues. I have tried various configuration of networking (private only, public and private, and all networks), always with network discovery and file and printer sharing set to on. Occasionally, one or other of the computers will be able to see one or more of the other computers on the network, but it's random. I've tried network reset and restarting computers, without consistent results. There is one computer that always seems to show up, and it is connected by wifi. The ones that are connected by cable are the ones which have the problem being network visible. These computers are all connected to the same router. At the moment, I have one which only shows the wifi computer, and two which show the wifi computer and one other computer. The one which can only see the wifi computer is seen by the other two cable connected computer. At various times one or the other of the computers will see all other the others plus itself.

I have given up on Windows file sharing. I happened to have and NAS (WD MyCloud Home) that I was not using so I pulled that off the shelf and hooked it up. Everything can see read it. Beats using a thumb drive.

Atom said:

I have given up on Windows file sharing. I happened to have and NAS (WD MyCloud Home) that I was not using so I pulled that off the shelf and hooked it up. Everything can see read it. Beats using a thumb drive.

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I think you have made this way to complicated. It is well known that Windows 10 and 11 networking is flaky. The first thing you do is try to ping each computer. If that works for every computer then you at least know networking is working. Then it doesn't matter whether the computer show up or not in File Explorer > Network. Just use a network shortcut to each computer. For example, the shortcut to computer Snoopy is \\Snoopy.

I have a home network with a mix of Windows XP, 7, 10 and 11 computers. As long as the computers are turned on and awake file sharing on the network always works.

Each computer on my network has a folder on the desktop called MyNetwork. That folder contains shortcuts to all the computers on the network.

MisterEd said:

I think you have made this way to complicated. It is well known that Windows 10 and 11 networking is flaky. The first thing you do is try to ping each computer. If that works for every computer then you at least know networking is working. Then it doesn't matter whether the computer show up or not in File Explorer > Network. Just use a network shortcut to each computer. For example, the shortcut to computer Snoopy is \\Snoopy.

I have a home network with a mix of Windows XP, 7, 10 and 11 computers. As long as the computers are turned on and awake file sharing on the network always works.

Each computer on my network has a folder on the desktop called MyNetwork. That folder contains shortcuts to all the computers on the network.

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Thanks for the explanation. I disagree with your assertion that I was making things too complicated; it's Microsoft that has made it complicated, not me. I've had trouble with this for years and done many searches for how to easily do file sharing on a Windows network. I never ran across the approach you described. Thanks again.

Atom said:

Thanks for the explanation. I disagree with your assertion that I was making things too complicated; it's Microsoft that has made it complicated, not me. I've had trouble with this for years and done many searches for how to easily do file sharing on a Windows network. I never ran across the approach you described. Thanks again.

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Let me say it another way. What I meant to say was to not to go down a rabbit hole looking for a solution when none may exist.

I have been following several computer support forums for many years. People have been posting about the Windows 10 & 11 network problems on several forums for probably as long as these OSs been around. The usual response is to either offer suggestions or give a link to a checklist. I have found none of these suggestions to be of any help. I have found it best to not worry about why networking does not work and just use the shortcut workaround. I have more important things to worry about.

MisterEd said:

Let me say it another way. What I meant to say was to not to go down a rabbit hole looking for a solution when none may exist.

I have been following several computer support forums for many years. People have been posting about the Windows 10 & 11 network problems on several forums for probably as long as these OSs been around. The usual response is to either offer suggestions or give a link to a checklist. I have found none of these suggestions to be of any help. I have found it best to not worry about why networking does not work and just use the shortcut workaround. I have more important things to worry about.

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I think you're right. I just don't understand why more people aren't giving the advice you gave me instead of telling you how to tweak Windows networking and file sharing. In all my searching for how to get it to work, I never ran across what you told me. Now that I know, it seems rather obvious, but you know what they say about hindsight.

In days of yore, when dial-up internet speeds were slow, networking was the way to go. Speeds of internet now make cloud sharing far more reliable than the unstable, unreliable networking options offered by Windows.