Cannot get Win 11 Pro to connect to Win 11 Home computers, Wi-Fi or ethernet.

[Starbird1954]

I have four computers on my network.  Two are Win 10, one is Win 11 Home, and the other is Win 11 Pro Wolf Edition.  Both Win 10 and the Win 11 Home can connect to the ProBook 445 G9 and perform sharing/transfers in and out.  All but the ProBook can connect to each other.  The ProBook cannot connect to any of the others, always with the message "Window cannot access <any other computer on the network>"  Error code is 0x80070035, "The network path was not found".  All of the permissions are the same on all computers.  Every diagnostic says the ProBook is 100% healthy, all drivers, firmware, and OS are current.  No issues connecting to the network printer, or the internet.  All other functions are normal.  I know this has got to be a security setting somewhere in Win 11 Pro (and I remember this being an issue with Win 10 Pro) but I don't know how to find it.

[BeemerBiker]

All systems need to have printer and file sharing enabled.

They need to be on the same subnet or you need to specify the exact path to the PC that is not in the subnet.

if the modem / router network is named attlocal.net  and a PC named FOO is on that network then the PC can be located using

\\FOO.attlocal.net

There is no need for attlocal.net if a PC is on the same subnet as FOO

To find the name of the local network you can ask any PC to reveal it's DNS location.

Copy and paste the following into the windows command prompt

ipconfig | find "DNS"

Let me know if you have a flex system with multiple Wi-Fi boosters and repeaters.

If a credentials popup is shown and the username password you enter is not accepted you may need to clear local credentials on the PC.  

[Starbird1954]

Well, the DNS matches between all systems, as does the subnet.  When looking at the credentials manager, all the older systems have many, the ProBook has no web credentials, and only my windows credentials.

all of the firewalls, file sharing, private network settings are the same between the four systems.

[Starbird1954]

[BeemerBiker]

To connect to the windows 11 system you will need to use the activation credentials of the administrator.

If when you try to connect you are only asked for the password (it can happen) then you need to bring up the credential manager and delete any existing credential so windows is forced to ask for the username.  Then enter the email and password used to activate windows 11.

I am not a network expert but the win11 system I have only connected using that  microsoft activation email account.

I ended up getting a cheap synology server rather than have a  lot of shared folders on an assortment of PCs.

[Starbird1954]

I have never had a problem with adding/removing systems from my network, but Win 10 had a change in the 1903 (?) update that caused issues, and Win 11 Pro started having issues with version 22H2, and only got worse with 24H2.  I'll keep digging, because I can't be the only one trying to connect a Win 11 Pro enterprise notebook to a private home network and not be able to file share.

[BeemerBiker]

---

@Starbird1954 wrote:

Win 11 Pro enterprise notebook to a private home network and not be able to file share.

---

Enterprise systems use different WPA encryption

Some home routers may not be able to handle the enterprise encryption.

This same problem showed up several months ago and required a firmware update.

It was to a printer so the printer could work with an enterprise system that had wpa3 or something higher.  After the firmware update the printer worked.

You may need to look into disabling enterprise encryption levels.  I have no experience with this, sorry.

[Starbird1954]

One other oddity, I can connect to the Media Server  of one of the network systems and pull files over to the ProBook.  I'm not crazy, two of the other systems are media servers and I can file share the music.   Also, can access the network printer and print without issue.

[Starbird1954]

I appreciate all the help.  It looks like the way around this is to disable a couple of domain/enterprise settings using the powershell.  Great apologies that my screen shot didn't capture the author.  I suspected there was something in the SMB setup, but I am more hardware than software and couldn't track it down.