HomeGroup is a feature released by Microsoft within Windows 7 operating system in order to allow users to share files and folders easily. A HomeGroup is actually a virtual network set up between a series of PCs connected to a single home network.
When Windows gets new features, you will certain hear about it. Less so when a feature is removed. Users found out that Homegroup is missing the hard way.While the concept of Homegroup is gone, following the instructions in this article will help you achieve the same functionality as if Homegroup is up and running.This article is part of our Windows 10 Guides Hub where you can learn about different things you can do with Windows.If you want to read more guides and tips, please follow the How-To section on our website.
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Microsoft has removed this feature from Windows 10, as they consider that it is not useful anymore. The sharing features that were covered by the HomeGroup feature can be performed by using OneDrive or the Share function found in your OS.
Even though there are alternatives to using this feature, removing it caused a lot of people to be confused about how to share files as they normally did in previous versions of Windows.
What to do if you can’t find HomeGroup Windows 10?
Windows 10 HomeGroup replacement
- Open This PC.
- Check the left pane if the Homegroup is available. If it is, right-click the HomeGroup and choose Change HomeGroup settings.
- In a new window, click Leave the homegroup.
Now check your Network and discovery settings by doing the following:
- Click on Cortana search box > type in Control Panel > select first option in results.
- Select the Networking and Sharing center.
- Choose the Advanced sharing settings option.
- In the Private tab, turn on Network discovery, and also File and printer sharing.
- In the All networks tab, turn on Public folder sharing.
- Click on Save changes.
Now change Services settings:
- Click on Cortana search box > type in Services > select the first option from the results.
- Locate the following services in the list: Function Discovery Provider Host, Function Discovery Resource Publication, SSDP Discovery, and UPnP Device Host.
- Right-click on each of them > select Properties > set the Startup type to Automatic.
- After doing this for each of the services mentioned above, click OK to save the settings.
Now check available shares:
- Open File Explorer and type localhost in the address bar.
- Create a new folder, and right-click it, choose Properties.
- Go to Sharing > Advanced Sharing.
- Check Share this folder option and click on Permissions.
- Select Full Control in Allow column and click Apply and OK.
- You should now be able to access the folder on the PCNAMEFolder_name address.
- Bear in mind that this method isn’t the safest, so you might want to adjust your settings and only share files with specific users.
In this article we explored the best way to re-activate the Homegroup sharing capabilities on Windows 10. Please make sure to follow the steps we provided in the order that they were written, in order to avoid any complications.
We would love to know if this article helped you get back to sharing your files with your network of computers. Please feel free to let us know by using the comment section below.
For the following cases, the same instructions apply:
- HomeGroup not showing up Windows 10 – If you upgraded from a previous version, you don’t have to worry, because it’s not a bug.
- No HomeGroup Windows 10 – You should know that the functionality was removed and replaced with other tools.
- Windows no longer detects a homegroup on this network Windows 10 – If you can’t share files, you can read this article for solutions.
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