Network PCS Not Visible In Windows 10

in windows 10 sometimes you wont see all network connected pc's when you access to network, most of the time it will dispaly very few pcs or only the pc's running windows 10, it doesn't show pcs running older version of windows (below windows 10), there are many thing to check to solve this problem, such as

1. Network Discovery
2. Firewall / Network Profile
3. SMB File Sharing Support

1 - Network Discovery

first of all please make sure to enable network discovery, see below picture, this is the first thing you need to check.

2 - Firewall / Network Profile

Please make sure you have correct firewall settings, this includes windows firewall and any antivirus related firewalls, if you enable multiple firewalls if will definitely created many problems. such as windows and antivirus firewalls together, make sure you use only one firewall, see below images, as you can see the image shows network type set as public antivirus firewall, this need to be other than public.

also you need to set correct windows network profile other than public, see below picture.

3 - SMB file sharing support

any finally make sure to enable SMB file sharing support, to do that,

1. go to control panel
2. click program and features
3. click turn windows features on or off
4. locate SMB file sharing support / SMB direct and enable (select all sub options as well)
5. finally restart pc and check

you should be able to see all network connected pc's and access to any shared folders if you use correct settings.

Windows 10 Shared Folders Access Failure

if you are in workgroup environment sometimes you might want to access shared folders and files, most people enable guest account to access shared folders in workgroup environment, but even you enable guest account in windows 10 you might run into error as following picture when accessing shared folders and files.

in order to solve this problems we have to enable insecure guest logons in group policy editor, to do that follow below steps.

1. press Win + R to open run
2. type gpedit.msc
3. navigate to Computer Configuration
4. Administrative Templates
5. Network
6. Lanman Workstation
7. now in the right side find and double click to open Enable insecure guest logons
8. select Enable and click apply and ok.

now restart pc to update group policy or we have to run command to update group policy immediately. to do that

1. open command prompt as administrator (hit window key > type cmd > right click cmd and run as      administrator
2. type gpupdate /force and press enter
3. wait until computer policy and user policy to update

Now you should be able access shared folders and files without any problem.

unknown character when composing email

one of our customer said me that he is experiencing problem when he composing email, he said that unkonwn sign appears when he press enter & dot sign for spaces, he says this is very annoying & hard to look at the document he types, so i involved the matter and fix the problem instantly, check below screenshot i got from his pc. (please click the image to enlarge)

so i configure some settings in the outlook 2003 and problems is gone, here is how i do it.

• click "new email message" button to compose email
• in the untitled message menu click tools > click option
• in the view tab check under formatting marks

see the picture

 

you can see in the picture there is a check box already selected for all under formatting marks , this is the problems, so i uncheck all and click ok, the problem is gone and i see a happy face.

set firefox homepage easy way

everybody knows how to change the browsers home page, no matter which browser you used, but when you use firefox, everybody knows the longway which is described as follows.

• open firefox
• click on tools and click options
• in general tab type the web address in the homepage line

now i am going to show you the easy way

• open firefox and go to your preferred site you use to set as a home page
• now highlight the url using your mouse and drag it to home icon in navigation toolbar
• then message box appeared "do you want this document to be your new homepage"
• click yes 
• now close the firefox and open again, you will see that the browser start with your new home page

printer language is unknown in xp (solved)

this happens when you install wrong driver (wrong language) , therefor when you get printer properties you cant view or configure it correctly, because the language is unknown, the solutions is to remove the printer driver and install the correct driver, sometimes, even if you install correct drivers the problem remains the same, there is a solution to this, but you need to careful when you do this, follow below descriptions.

first you have to disconnect printer connections to computer, remove cables also, make sure you got the printer driver cds, you can do this process in 2 way

option 1

• go to services window (star > run > type services.msc > press enter)
• locate print spooler service and stop it (right click on service & click stop)
• go to system32 folder (Ex - C:\WINDOWS\system32), locate spool folder, you have to rename this folder which is not easy, first you have to unlock the processes that related to spool folder
• you can use unlocker software to unlock the process (download here) after installing unlocker, go to system32 folder
• right click on spool folder and click unlock (warning - click only unlock)
• now rename the folder as you like (Ex - spool old)
• now plug the printer data cable and power on the printer
• the printer will be detected showing found new hardware wizard
• now you have to do is install the correct printer drivers, your problem will be solved

if you experience difficulties following above steps to rename spool folder, then you might try the option 2

option 2

• start computer from bootable cd (like hiren boot cd, choose "mini xp" from the menu and proceed)
• after loading to mini xp, go to your windows system 32 folder (Ex - C:\WINDOWS\system32)
• locate spool folder
• rename it as you like (Ex - spool old)
• restart the pc in normal mode
• after loading to windows xp, you need to connect the printer data cables and install the correct printer drivers