You don't need homegroups, mine is not on I don't think. Either way, it's not on for all the things that my other family members use. Printers, etc. If the computer with the samples can already access the network, then you should just be able to right click on the folder or drive in question and go to the share tab and turn on sharing. Then the sample computer and the shared folder should be visible when you click on Network in Windows.

 

once you make your PC discoverable the the "Video, Music and Pictures: should be accessible from any computer via Wi-fi. Otherwise you would probably need a NAS drive to properly share files over the network.. This is from what I understand... But I am not a computer Genius...

 

Well, if the computer you are trying to copy from can't even access the network in general, that's your first problem that needs to be addressed. Because my workstation, has the same problem you mention about network discovery that you have. But my laptop and render slaves all have network discovery on. The point is, I can still access the the drives or folders that are shared even on my workstation, assuming I turn it on first. What about the other network options? Do you have file and printer sharing turned on. This is the only option I make sure to have checked on all my computers.

Also, right this second, I can't access the shared folders from my workstation on my laptop, but both computers can see and use the network printers. However, if I reset both computers they should see each other again.

If you can't turn on network discovery still. Try connecting to a new public network, then just reconnect to the home/work network and see if it will make a new network connection, that will then let you turn on network discovery.

 

It's been ages since I did that, but perhaps assigning manual IPs (no DHCP) you could work-around the no discovery thing.
But that's for ethernet, I don't know if you can do that with WiFi.

 

@ArticStorm

May be, I don't understand what you want to achieve... Syncing folders isn't sharing them, isn't it? There is one folder and its content is the same as content of another one on a different computer.

I use GoodSync for this. I sync my files to my NAS first and then get them on an active PC. It's a paid program but there are many free alternatives: SyncBack Free, SyncFolders etc. SyncThing is very useful for me (I use it to sync files between my smartpone, my tablet and PC, it works over LAN too, without Internet, but establishing connection is a bit tricky). They all can access other computers over LAN. Both a source and a destination must be online at the same time though, this is the single condition.

Also it's possible to use any router with USB that can read pendrives or HDD. You put a pendrive or HDD in a router and it becomes visible in your LAN. Then just sync all the files over pendrive (to it and from it, on different computers in your network) with any capable program.

If this isn't possible, the way is using any cloud drive. But this is not LAN...

 

Try SyncThing, it doesn't require for your computers to see one another in LAN. Or Resilio Sync. Files in both cases are synced by bittorrent. Over Intenet or over LAN only, you can choose how.

EDIT: Resilio Sync is a bit simpler and a bit more user friendly.

 

Free version of Resilio Sync is absolutely useful.

 

No.

You install Resilio Sync on both computers. Then you connect your devices. There are QR-codes for smartphones or codes (similar to serials) to connect without a phone. You may send them by e-mail. Then when your devices have been connected you pick folders you want to sync with other PC. On each computer separetely. And they will be synced automatically. But both computers must be online.

Resilio Sync and SyncThing are very similar to Softros Lan Messenger.

Tutorial... Read their help.

https://help.resilio.com/hc/en-us

 

"Must be online" means they works (aren't shut down) and are connected to LAN or Internet.

 

as a matter of fact, any decent external USB 3.0 SSD is around 5x faster than 1 Gbit network LAN, so even if you copy twice, it's still 2.5x faster than 1 Gbit network LAN
about WiFi, expect speeds 10-50x slower than USB 3.0

speaking of network transfers, just launch Run dialog (Win+R hotkey) and type the target IP address and disk label, such as for ex. \\192.168.0.10\c$
just fill the login/passwords of your target PC user, and there you go
no need for homegroup, shared folders or network discovery bullshit

 

Faster? In this case (as I understand) you have to connect an external drive, copy files manually, then connect the drive to another PC and copy files again. Again and again. Every day. It's better when somebody makes this job instead of you

 

and yet it's faster than 1Gbit LAN
plus since he uses two computers, he needs to walk to them anyway

 

I do things similar to tzzsmk when it comes to accessing other PCs over the network.

I refer to the PC by device name rather than IP though, and it works. It'll show in settings-> about what the device name is. (you could also set up DNS, and static LAN ips on your router to refer to specific computers in another "friendly named" way too)

On top of that, I do some other things.. some of which might be a little unnecessary, but this is what I do:
1) create a local user on the target machine for the access
2) right click on folder or drive i want to share, pick properties, go to sharing tab click advanced sharing, check off share this folder. Click OK
3) Next, set up permissions under the security tab by clicking "Edit" here, and adding in my user, and assigning the appropriate permissions I need.

Then, on the other machine, I connect to it with something liek:

\\DEVICE-NAME\MUSICSHARE

I'll then be prompted for the credentials of the user that I set up in step 1.

I log on to my laptop and my desktop using the same microsoft account.. I swear I used to not have to do step 1 (creating a share user) before, but for some reason now I do.. maybe that started happening in Windows 10... or maybe that was with Homegroups. Anyways, it works this way for me, and I don't mind being prompted to logon.

 

rclone, robocopy and rsync will do that for you.