Windows 10 File Sharing Broken Again

File Sharing is InTransitive between Win 10 2004 and Win 10 1909

I have a bunch of computers. Not surprising since I’ve been a software engineer for decades. Windows file sharing has always been exasperating. It works, then it fails, then it works again.

So here’s an example.

Intrasitive Networking

I have had a little Gigabyte Brix computer for a couple of years now. I would like to set it up to play audio books so I moved it and hooked it to another monitor. I thought that a few weeks ago, file sharing was working fine, but now it’s not. I just need to copy the audio books to it so I can play them. So Crystal can see the GBBrix shares and read files from that system. But the GBBrix system cannot see any other systems on the network and so cannot copy files from them. All the shares are set “Everyone can read”.

Foolish me.

By “intransitive” I mean unable to communicate in both directions between two nodes of a network. Google cannot find this definition for me. All it finds for “Transitive” or “Intransitive” relates to Verbs in a language. Oh, here’s the definition. Number 2 – Logic. In either order a >> b and b >> a.

Intrasitive and Intransigent Networks

Certainly the network is “Intransigent”.

What’s the Problem?

So what’s the problem? Well the Windows 10 trouble shooter can’t find it either.

The GBBrix system cannot see the file shares from the Crystal machine. GBBrix is running 2004 and the Crystal machine is running 1909. Apparently this is a widely known problem, and has been for some time.

Here’s a portion of a posting on the Windows Support Site. Oh good. All I have to do is “Reinstall Windows” and it will work just fine. Yeah. No. I can carry my Audio books on a thumb drive a lot faster than doing that.

Here’s a portion of the page referred to above:

I have a lot of work to do and I’ll get back here to update us on the solution.

Update: later this day.

Look what I found when I tried some things on the GBBrix end.

  • Type the network path
  • Path opens to show shares
  • Copy the files using the share
File sharing works from GBBrix.

By typing “\\nodename\sharename\” into the network browser, you can open the network share directly. The node is not displayed in the browser, but it’s reachable.

Also the browser is very confused.

  • One browser sees the node and one does not.
  • The node shows on the left, but not the right
Confused Network Browser on Windows 10 2004

But the view from the Crystal computer is just fine. This computer is running Windows 10 1909.

Crystal can see all the nodes, and all the shares, and copy files from GBBrix.

So Windows File Sharing works, it’s just the network browser that’s broken in Windows 10 2004.

:ww