intermittent home network

[rans6andrew]

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........

[jimjim1]

Automagical stuff that microsoft thinks you don't need to understand often seems to go awry.

If I am using shared folders I just mount the share with the "net use" command.

net use drive-letter: \\computername\sharename

Of course you can run into permissions issues but I think it asks you for a userid and password if it wants one. You provide a userid and password from the "shared" side, not the machine you are trying to mount it on.

net use \\computername\sharename -- will choose a drive letter for you.

net use L: \\computername\sharename -- will mount the share as drive L:.

Now the trick is, if you disconnect for any reason and come back later it may or may not re-connect.

Check with

c: \>net use

Disconnected Z: \\fs1\PS Microsoft Windows Network

If it says Disconnected then I always just delete it and re mount it.

net use z: /delete
net use z: \\fs1\PS

Once you get the permissions sorted then the above works every time.

With shares you do need to be aware of security these days, for example it may be trivial for someone to mount YOUR share in a cafe if you are using their WiFi.

net use z: \\fs1\PS /PERSISTENT:YES

means it should remember it.

net view \\computername

will display all the shares IF you have permission.

I have left the sharing process out since you can easily find that on tinterwebs. net use is less commonly described but as I said, once set up (permissions) the above works EVERY TIME.

Finally there are pre-configured shares on every windows computer. c$ is the C drive. $ means that it is not displayed by the net use command, but EVERY windows computer has it pre-configured.

net use x: \\computername\c$

Once again the permissions may get tricky.

Finally to find the computername type the set command, the computername is displayed. They are in alphabetical order.

C: \Users\jim>set
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C: \ProgramData
CommonProgramFiles=C: \Program Files\Common Files
CommonProgramFiles(x86)=C: \Program Files (x86)\Common Files
CommonProgram=C: \Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=MYCOMPUTER
ComSpec=C: \WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe
. . .

If you like you can use

set | find "COMPUT" --- this is case sensitive

C: \Users\jim>set | find "OMPU"
COMPUTERNAME=MN137

C: \Users\jim>

Nothing above is case sensitive EXCEPT the bit in the quotes of the find command.

You can mix and match the GUI File Manager stuff and the above. The only thing that I am not sure how to do from the GUI is the /delete bit. This is needed though if a mounted share goes to the "Disconnected" state.

Finally, you can have mounted share without drive letters, I would guess that this may be what you get automagically.

If you get one like that that is disconnected you could try to delete it with net use and re-mount it from the GUI? Or just use the drive letter version??

I have one on my work computer now -

net use
Disconnected \\TMP01\Data Microsoft Windows Network

It doesn't seem a problem with my work computer but I don't deal with that part of it. We likely have login scripts that explicitly mount the drives with net use commands.

I just put \\TMP01\Data in the address bar in File Explorer and I get (re-)connected.

[WB627]

jimjim1 Fantastic. You are obviously an IT God :cool: . Now could you please simplify that lot for us mere IT mortals :\ . I'm having difficulties connecting a Lenovo tablet W10 to the rest of my W10 network :( .

[Jhieminga]

Just a thought, but Samsung Kies is the software that used to be shipped with Samsung phones to sync them to a computer. If you have that installed on the WinXP desktop, perhaps that is interfering with the network setup. You could try removing it from the desktop to see if that improves things. If jimjim1's post already solved this, then you can of course just ignore this one.

[jimjim1]

. Now could you please simplify that lot for us mere IT mortals

https://www.justanswer.co.uk/sip/expert-answers

[jimjim1]

I forgot earlier -

This command shows you the shares that are available on the server machine.

C: \Users\MyFileServer>net share

Share name Resource Remark

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C$ C: \ Default share
IPC$ Remote IPC
ADMIN$ C: \WINDOWS Remote Admin
The command completed successfully.

IPC$ and ADMIN$ are not file shares but something else.

It is possible to create shares with net share but you may as well use the GUI in Windows Explorer (was File Manager) since that works OK.