Home Network - Starting Over...

[billyk]

I've never gotten my Win10-based home network to operate 100%. Sometimes it works for some computers, other times it just doesn't. I am starting over and want to make sure I get a clean start and possibly get this right!

What I have now is an old desktop as my home Hub - it's got the printer and photo scanner connected to it. It's getting replaced with a new laptop. I have a couple other Win10 laptops that need to connect to the new "Hub" machine. All computer connections are via wifi using an Asus AC2900 that works great. Absolutely nothing exotic here.

So, with the latest release of Win10 on all of my machines, what's the best way to "reset" back to scratch, and the best way to move forward with home networking?

Thanks in advance for your help!
-bk

 

[OzarkEdge]

I've never gotten my Win10-based home network to operate 100%. Sometimes it works for some computers, other times it just doesn't. I am starting over and want to make sure I get a clean start and possibly get this right!

What I have now is an old desktop as my home Hub - it's got the printer and photo scanner connected to it. It's getting replaced with a new laptop. I have a couple other Win10 laptops that need to connect to the new "Hub" machine. All computer connections are via wifi using an Asus AC2900 that works great. Absolutely nothing exotic here.

So, with the latest release of Win10 on all of my machines, what's the best way to "reset" back to scratch, and the best way to move forward with home networking?

Thanks in advance for your help!
-bk

What is a Home hub?

OE

 

[billyk]

OE,
It's not some type of official "hub", it's just a desktop in the basement that all of the laptops in the house connect to in order to print. So, it's the "hub" of my network. That's all.

 

[dosborne]

Sharing a printer or drive from one or, in fact, all your windows systems should be straightforward. Just add all your systems to the same workgroup and make anything that is sharing a service "discoverable" (although not strictly required, it just makes it easier). Using the same user ID and password makes file sharing easier too, but again, not strictly required. When given the option, select "private/home network" or whatever it is labelled these days.

The term "hub" is misleading and may steer people in the wrong direction. Sharing a printer is not making a "hub", it is simply a shared resource ( a hub is typically refering to a network switch that physically connects devices, essentially what your router is doing)

 

[tipstir]

OP I understand what your doing because I use to do that years ago. But the best thing you can do if you have the budget for it buy a router wired or wireless. I like the wired router, AP (wireless access point), switch you can do the same as small business does. Then you can run your network 100% in your home. If you want to go fancy then take a look at Tp-link Small business network gear and get yourself a mini-rack and place all rack mounted devices in that rack. You'll need a rack mounted power supply unit with push buttons control. These are some options to do this. If your printer doesn't have LAN or WLAN feature your using USB hub connection to a desktop PC running 24/7 to be able to run print jobs through it for all your network hardware PCs. To get off that system you can buy Laser or LED printer on it's own Network connect that to a switch then to router then it will share out to the other PCs via TCP connect just need the driver for the printer. But Windows 10 does a good job doing that for you today. Any questions I'll be back tomorrow.

 

[dosborne]

buy a router wired or wireless.

Isn't that the Asus AC2900 in the OP

 

[coxhaus]

My latest HP color laser is on the network. It does Apple AirPrint as well as allows Windows 10 PCs to print directly to it. My wireless Windows 10 laptop prints directly to the printer across my network. My printer has a Ethernet cable connected to a switch. I do not have to have any PC powered on to print. This saves running a PC 24/7 as a print spooler and electricity. Also my wired desktop prints directly to the printer across the network as well.

 

[Mark0]

That Asus AC2900 has two USB ports on the back you can connect printers or a storage drive to for network sharing. One of the ports is USB 3.0 which would be good for a USB 3.0 drive.

This assumes your printer(s) don't have a wired LAN port, or wifi as many current ones do these days.

Asus has easy instructions for adding and configuring the printer settings in your computers.

But guessing for good wireless coverage you may have the Asus and printers in a different part of the house so this isn't feasible(?).

 

[tipstir]

Isn't that the Asus AC2900 in the OP

OP was running HUB on his network. I didn't mention his ASUS AC2900 I was talking about the HUB.

 

[billyk]

Thanks everyone for your input. I've been busy fixing other issues since I started this post. Let me provide a little more info...

I need to connect two laptops on my home network via WiFi, one of which has a printer attached via USB that I need to share. I followed the tutorial on TenForums. I still can't get things to work - I can't see the other computer from either computer in File Manager, and entering the path to the other computer doesn't seem to work either.

Both laptops are Win10 Home Edition, 1909, with the latest available updates. I did the following...

• SMB 1.0 is checked with automatic removal unchecked
• Use sharing wizard is checked
• Function Discovery Resource Publication and Function Discovery Provider Host services are both running and set to start automatically
• Network discovery is on for both private and public networks
• File and printer sharing is on for both private and public networks
• Public folder sharing is on
• Password protected sharing is off
• 128 bit encryption is on
  
• Workgroup name is the same on both machines

The WiFi network at home is fast and stable (thanks to folks on this forum!!) , although I don't know if there are any router settings that are a blocker for connecting on my home network. My router is nowhere near either laptop, so wiring it is not an option.

Is there another tutorial that I need to reference? Any other tricks/tweaks?
Thanks in advance for any ideas and sorry for going MIA for a couple of weeks!
-bjk

 

[degrub]

What are the wireless ip addresses for the two laptops ?
Can you ping the other laptop from the second one ?

are they both associating with an access point or are you trying to get each to connect directly with the other across wireless ?

 

[billyk]

I tried pinging using IP's and I couldn't.
I am trying to connect over WiFi.

Any other ideas?

 

[dosborne]

I tried pinging using IP's and I couldn't.
I am trying to connect over WiFi.

To be clear, as your answers and posts leave some ambiguity.......

Can you confirm that your laptops are both connected to the router (Asus AC2900) via WiFi using the main SSID on the router (i.e. not a guest SSID)?
What is the firmware version of the router?
Can you post your actual IP addresses (assuming that they are NATed i.e. something along the lines of 192.168.x.y) of the 2 laptops?
The ping result failed ("I tried pinging using IP's and I couldn't.") - did it time out or provide some other error message?
When you expand on "Network" in Windows File Explorer for example, can either laptop discover *any* devices on your network?
How about your firewall settings in Windows configuration? Are you blocking incoming connections?
Are you logged in to Windows using a local administrative account on both laptops?


Although you seem to have found a few sites, the steps in this one look pretty good as a place to double check your settings
https://helpdeskgeek.com/networking/cannot-see-other-computers-on-network-in-my-network-places/

 

[billyk]

Everyone...

I don't know how this happened, but as I was answering dosborne's post, I randomly looked in File Explorer and DAMN! I could see laptop B from laptop A. I could also see A from B.

I set up the shared printer connected to laptop A and B prints to it perfectly.

The only things I did since I last did a thorough check earlier this afternoon:
- I disabled everything under SMB, on both machines.
- Both machines were sitting idled for a while as I as working on something else.

I have no idea if this will be a reliable network connection, but it works now!
I'll certainly be right back here tomorrow if it's broken again.

You folks on this forum are awesome!
Thanks again!
-bjk

 

[billyk]

Still working today.
Great!