intermittent home network
My partner has a newish Win10 laptop PC which logs onto our home network(s) readily but often fails to access her old WinXP desktop where many of her files still reside. The Win10 file manager can usually see across the network to the old machine but it's description of the machine is not the old machine hardware, it comes up as Samsung Kies Sync Server. It cannot be opened to view files. It is odder than it first appears as Open Office, on the new machine, will happily open files on the old machine IF they are still in it's recent files list. After much faffing about and waking/rebooting of machines it sometimes finds the old machine and files can be downloaded. It may just be a matter waiting for it to connect but if it is down to time it can be about an hour. It can disappear as randomly as it appears. Once the files are finished with they can always be saved back to the old machine (still in the recent files list). The old WinXP laptop never showed this behaviour to the the same desktop.
What might cause the hardware description to be wrong so file explorer can't (Won't) access files on it? Running about with a USB stick is keeping us fit, who needs to step outside for excercise?
Rans6........