Fix Homegroup Password, Joining and Unjoining Issues

None of this works.

Yes it does.

Between PC's.

We had a Homegroup set up, & everything was running nicely on Windows 7. Then came the Windows 10 upgrade and problem after problem, taking hours and hours to fix, along with 3 complete reinstallments of Windows 10 because things kept disappearing or just didn't work any more; for example,  the start menu and task bar just disappeared 2 weeks after the initial upgrade and nothing could fix that bug until I finally did the anniversary update and got a different build. At least that was only 4 hours instead of 8+ hours for the previous 3 times.

After the Windows 10 upgrade, Homegroup disappeared completely, but we could still use our family network to see all computers and transfer files etc.  We have 2 laptops and the main workhorse, the desktop PC, all in good running order, maintained and de-junked regularly, all runnning Windows 10, all secure, no bugs except for Microsoft's ongoing glitches.

Then came another update and goodbye to being able to access all devices from each other on the network. We've tried everything -network settings, sharing settings, etc. etc., looked at all sorts of ideas online and in this forum, and nothing works. Yesterday I had another go at sorting it out ...because my 18-year-old has literally thousands upon thousands of photographs & other large files that he needs to transfer from his older previous laptop to his new one, and then some.

Somewhere in all of this, the Homegroup icon reappeared... entirely useless, but strangely sitting there, even though I finally found info. from Microsoft that yes, indeed, Homegroup would no longer work with Windows 10.... among the pages and pages of other infobites still telling me how to make Homegroup work!

Does no-one ever stop to think about deleting old, irrelevant, defunct information? Or even archiving it under "out of date, do not bother"?

Your instructions can't possibly work because I have no option to leave the homegroup. The only window I get is one asking me to join a homegroup, but when I do that it asks for a password -and the only password we ever had does not work and we're refused access. There is no option to view the password either. And Homegroup was not useless; it was an easy, convenient, time-efficient, paperless way of sharing/transferring any kind of file.

First of all, you can delete the HomeGroup folder on all PC's and start fresh, but you have to do it correctly as explained here or in another thread.

Ya you get the JOIN HOMEGROUP, because you are already NOT JOINED.

Just ignore the homegroup, if you are not joined leave it this way.

And you can right click your user account folder and select give access to >>>NOBODY after getting out of HomeGroup. Just use you network folder for sharing as it has been since Windows 95.

You're missing the point:

We had a Homegroup prior to Windows 10 that then disappeared-gone, poof! No icon, NADA! Can't use what isn't there.

We could still use network for a bit, but then one day son got message saying he couldn't access my desktop PC from his laptop. It had been fine the night before. I could still see his laptop on the network and access it, but he couldn't access my PC. Nothing had changed except for W10 updates. We checked/tried everything, but there was no fixing it. Then we could no longer access the other laptop and finally none of the machines could even see each other.

Just recently, the Homegroup icon RE-APPEARED, so I clicked on it. Now, I created the Homegroup on my PC originally, so where is this (new?) thing coming from? If it was the original Homegroup, then the password would work, but it doesn't. I have no access to the (new?) password either -there is nowhere to click, and no amount of right-clicking will do anything at all.

So, no network sharing & no Homegroup. See? I've already seen the same information in your 2 links along with all the others I've looked at prior to asking the community, and that would be no, and no.

It's a MS mess.

???

As I said, we already tried everything -your 2 links are just the same info. and repeating them won't change anything.

Off to get a new external hard drive -about the only option left. Slower, but works.

External drive is not the answer or resolution. Those 2 links, especially the sharing one, is how you do it. It also as nothing to do with homegroup.

The update may have changed the OWNER of any external drives and effected your network and now PC's can not share.. There should be no reason you all can not share through the PUBLIC folders on each PC. That is what they are for. And if sharing any personal folders and files, you can simply select Advanced for each one in their properties under sharing tab and select the type of permissions to the users and they will be available to share on other PC's..

Arghh!

As I said, nothing works, which includes everything on the 2 links. Been through it all!  And yes, I do know that Homegroup has nothing to do with network.

External hard drive: apparently you misunderstand. There has NEVER been an external hard drive attached to son's latest laptop (huge amount of storage), and I haven't had one plugged into my PC since well before any W10 upgrade or updates (I back up files online in 2 places now) so your idea about updates affecting things are irrelevant, if not a bit out there.

When we were running on Windows 7, we used one hard drive for backup (not pluggged in all the time) and had zero issues. In fact, a friend who works for Cisco uses only external hard drives because she's constantly upgrading machines and it saves time transferring files.

What I did say, however, was that I was going to plug in a NEW one & use it to transfer files to son's latest laptop. Then he can at least move on.

I repeat: External hard drives have zero to do with the problem. None were plugged in, no ownerships got changed, and no hard drives were corrupted or affected the network.

Public folders... seriously? I'd have to move what amounts to the entire contents of the average personal computer, in hundreds and hundreds of folders. That is, if it worked. It doesn't. I already tried a test run ages and ages ago.

The problem is a glitch(es) in Windows 10.  That would possibly be related to the disappearance of Skype from my PC after a W10 update (as in COMPLETELY uninstalled), the disappearance of the start menu after the initial upgrade (lots of people squawking about that one), and no, the "fixes" did not work! Only the anniversary upgrade to a different build worked. Oh, and let's not forget how the Creators update crashed my son's new laptop right in the middle of a huge project- the one that came with W10 pre-installed. Thank goodness for a great warranty, competent techs, and a kid with the common sense to always back up his work.

Windows 7 was a good OS that worked; Windows 10? Not so much. 

Time for MS to admit that there are problems and to get on with fixing them. Or start from scratch and develop a better OS.

Try this and other links there.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/connecting-pcs-and-users-for-sharing/fb92e439-5dbc-4367-9857-1ef360e9ffdf

Oh like I don't have a tablet or a smart phone...our household does not use those devices...the homegroup is very useful for us and its removal in win10 1803 is distressing...you obviously are a win10 guru and have the technical ear of someone at MS...please tell them that home PC users don't care what Cortana thinks, not how many toys one can put into an XBOX...oh yea, social media is the bane of mankind...that said, encourage MS to do something proactive and reestablish Homegroup for the old people that can't carry their system to a coffee shop in a backpack, nor want to and don't have a rear pocket sufficient to carry it.  Oh like thank you.