Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2023 February 2

= February 2 =

Finding Printer from Windows 11
I had been using a Windows 10 computer, and had it connected directly to a Brother HL-L23600W laser printer. The Windows 10 computer was starting to fail, and I have replaced it with a new Windows 11 computer. I have a wireless router that the Windows 11 computer is connecting to the Internet via. How do I make the printer be accessible via wireless? Is this possible at all, or, now that I was using the printer with a direct connection, do I have to direct-connect it by cable to the new computer? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:30, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * AFAICT there's no such thing as a HL-L23600W. Do you mean the HL-L2360DW? If so this appears to to be a wireless printer so you should be able to connect to your WiFi router. You may need to set this up via the printer's control panel. There's an official video guide here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeARGVWU-t4 although I haven't viewed it. Nil Einne (talk) 09:15, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Nil Einne - Yes. It isn't easy to tell the D from a 0 on the nameplate.  It is HL-L2360DW.  I chatted with a Brother tech person, and understood what they were telling me well enough to give up.  I can cycle through the network names and find  the name of my wireless router.  The problem is that I have to enter the password for the wireless router by selecting letters from a display that scrolls through the letters.  That isn't feasible.  So I plugged the USB cable into the printer and the back of the computer.  It would be a useful feature if the printer would have a USB keyboard port that one could temporarily plug a keyboard into, for the purpose of entering the wireless network password.  Thank you for replying to the question that I meant to ask.  Robert McClenon (talk) 21:55, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Some printers do have USB ports but these are for connecting storage device for printing to (and maybe sometimes saving to if they are MFP devices with scanners). While it might be possible for these to support keyboards in theory I'm doubtful it's very common. Most consumer printer OSes and hardware are very simple & supporting keyboards is probably way beyond their design. More importantly it's also probably considered a fairly useless feature. While entering the WiFi password manually is annoying, it's something which generally only has to be done for the life of the printer. The number of consumers will wish to go through the hassle and confusion of connecting a USB keyboard assuming they even have one, rather than just enter it manually is likely very low. (Although I have easy access to USB keyboards and have connected them to smart TVs before, it's not something I've ever considered for a printer just to enter the Wifi password. Noting also mine is a reasonably long phrase with some additional features making it slightly more complicated to enter rather than I'm guessing like the majority of passwords which may be 10 characters or something.) I think some printers may allow you to set up the WiFi. It's possible some printers may allow WiFi setup to be done when the printer is physically connected to a computer a feature people might be more likely to use. Nil Einne (talk) 22:08, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:Nil Einne. Yes.  It would be a feature used only once or twice or thrice in the life of the printer.  I could put up with the nuisance of entering the wireless password into the printer once if I didn't have the option of cabling the printer to the PC.  The limitation now is that, just as before I upgraded the desktop computer, I can't print from the laptop. I also can't copy files from the laptop to the desktop, because of the file sharing problem described below.  I have some confidence that I will get that solved within a few days.  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Couldn't resist including this cartoon . NadVolum (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:NadVolum - How about "Printer not found. Unable to print advice for connecting printer"  Robert McClenon (talk) 06:29, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * As I noted, it did find the printer when I connected the printer cable. Duh.  Robert McClenon (talk) 06:29, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Finding Laptop from Windows 11
I had been using a Windows 10 desktop computer and a Windows 10 laptop computer. I have replaced the Windows 10 desktop computer with a new Windows 11 computer. The two computers were each maintaining folders that were shared, and so could be accessed from the other computer. What do I need to do, on the Windows 11 machine, to map to folders on the laptop computer that were previously shared? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:30, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This has some promising leads. There's several videos there where the description says pretty much exactly what you are asking to do.  I haven't vetted any of them myself, but it's a lead you might want to follow.  -- Jayron 32 12:59, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:Jayron32. I can do a Map Network Drive from This PC, and it discovers (correctly) that there are two computers on the local network.  When I try either to expand the  list of folders on the laptop or enter the name of one of the folders on the laptop, I get a prompt for a network password.  I have tried entering my Microsoft password, and I have tried entering the PIN that I use to log on to the laptop.  Kdel>Both of them get rejected as the wrong password.  So my question then is how do I set a password on the laptop that it will recognize?  Is there a service that I can use to get someone to walk me through the steps that costs less than $199?  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:08, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It helps to remember exactly when special characters are part of the password. Typist error.  It's been a very long time since I was designated as a typist, in order to get hired for a summer programming job by passing a typing test.  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:24, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * While smart phones and touch centric interfaces have resulted in stuff many would consider harmful to traditional desktop interfaces, one good thing they've done IMO is resulted in most password prompts now having a show password option. Unless they've done something weird with Windows 11, this should include most password prompts for connecting to networks. If there's no risk of someone seeing the password, such prompts should always be used if having a problem with the password IMO no matter how such someone is they're entering it correctly. Nil Einne (talk) 15:29, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Finding Windows 11 Computer from Laptop
I had been using a Windows 10 desktop computer and a Windows 10 laptop computer. I have replaced the Windows 10 desktop computer with a new Windows 11 computer. The two computers were each maintaining folders that were shared, and so could be accessed from the other computer. What do I need to do on the laptop computer to access folders on the Windows 11 computer that I have declared to be shared folders? These are not duplicated questions, only duplicated preconditions. One question has to do with seeing the Windows 11 computer from the laptop, and the other with seeing the Windows 10 laptop from the Windows 11 desktop computer. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Here is an update and another question. I succeeded into accessing shared files on the Windows 10 laptop from the Windows 11 desktop computer.  I was not able to access shared files the other way, on the Windows 11 computer from the Windows 10 laptop.  Are there any obvious or semi-obvious reasons why I would be having this problem? Is there any significant difference between the network validation on Windows 10 and on Windows 11? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I upgraded the laptop to Windows 11, and still am getting an error message trying to access files on the desktop computer from the laptop computer.  The troubleshooter says that I do not have an account.  Is there anything that I should consider that I might be missing?  Robert McClenon (talk) 08:26, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * IMO when having problems with file and printer sharing on Windows, it helps to go back to the basics. First would be to check your File and Printer sharing settings e.g. "Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Centre\Advanced sharing settings" (this is for Windows 10, I have no idea if they are still in the classic control panel in Windows 11 or they've moved them to somewhere in the new settings thing in Windows 11) and make sure they're all set correctly i.e. network discovery is turned on and file and printer sharing is turned on. To keep things simple, you'd want to do this on both computers since it sounds like you want to share stuff on both computers anyway. You can also check the "All Networks" settings although nothing there should matter too much for classic sharing on modern versions of Windows. Checking out the advanced sharing settings also should provide the chance to check out what the current network is set to on both machines. Generally for a home network this would be private. If you've set it to a public or guest network, was this intentional and if so why? While there are some scenarios when it would make sense it must be rare when your trying to do file and printer sharing on those computers in that network. If it wasn't intentional probably this just happened because when you first connected to the network Windows asked you if you wanted to make it private or public you either didn't notice this and didn't set it to private in time and so it stayed as public. In that case, you'd probably want to change network profile to be private on both.  Finally, you'd want to open the allow an app through the Windows Firewall settings and check that file and printer sharing is enabled/allowed for the relevant network profile. I think enabling file and printer sharing on the advanced sharing settings should automatically allow it through the firewall but it's always wise to check in case something went wrong. For added assurance, you could also check the Windows firewall advanced settings and ensure that there are enabled inbound rules to allow the various file and printer sharing services etc.  Having done all that, you can now start to test sharing. The first would be to share some non empty directory on the remote/network computer you're trying to access (let's call this computer R). I'd share it with a name without a space just to reduce complexity e.g. TestShare. I mean you could check an existing share and make sure it's shared but it might be easier to make a new one. After that, on the remote computer (i.e. still computer R, there's no more computers involved in this part yet) try accessing it via network shares. I strongly recommend sticking with IPv4 IP during initial troubleshooting so use something like \\192.168.0.10 or whatever. Do you see any shares (after entering any username and password as needed)? If you can't even see network shares on the remote/sharing computer something has gone wrong so it's not worth worrying about using some other computer. If you can see it, I'd open one of the shares and ensure you can see files or directories and remember the name of this share or frankly the full path e.g. \\192.168.0.10\TestShare.  Having done all that you can move back to the computer where you want to access the remote computer from. Let's call this second computer computer L. From computer L, try pinging computer R by IPv4 IP. So on a terminal (cmd or Powershell or whatever) ping 192.168.0.10. If this doesn't work well this probably means you can't even connect to computer R from computer L in general so you need to work out what's wrong with that e.g. are you on different subnets, is there something weird with your router config, is there something wrong with your firewall settings? (While you could prevent pings/ICMP but allow file and printer sharings, again why would you do that?) From your comments in the main section it sounds like you're able to access to remote computer but I'd still go through the basics just in case.  If that works, next try accessing computer R in Explorer of computer L to get share browser thing just like you did on computer R. So again e.g. \\192.168.0.10. Generally, this should either result in a username and password request or you should see the shares just like when you did it on computer R. If it doesn't work IMO it's still worth also trying a share directly so try \\192.168.0.10\TestShare or whatever. If both of these don't work, I'd go back to the firewall settings on computer R, and also check your router doesn't have some weird firewall settings.  (Most home user routers generally do not firewall anything on the local network by default but some fancier ones may allow you to enable it. But also if they have a guest WiFi network or something they may firewall and block most between different devices on the guess network and I assume one of the purposes of the guest network is that they should block connections between the guest network and the main network. Likewise if the router allows you to set-up multiple WiFi networks.)  Nil Einne (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:Nil Einne. I've printed your answer on the machine on which the printer is working, and will be following the instructions in order on both machines on Monday (New York time).  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:47, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:Nil Einne. I think that I have two questions.  First, when I am on a computer, how do I ask what its IPv4 address is?  I have the IPv6 addresses of both computers, but there is no way I can remember them.  What I can do is to print them.  But you said to use the IPv4 address rather than the IPv6 address or the mythological name.  (The names of the computers are from various mythologies.  Why not?) Second, when I try to access computer R from computer I, it says to enter network credentials.  When I enter my username, it asks me for a password.  When I enter the password, it says, "The username or password is incorrect".  That is what has been happening.  Is there anything I can do at this point?  I can view computer I from computer R.  And it looks to me like the network settings that you described are the same on both machines.  Should I try changing the password on both machines?  How do I change the password?  That was three questions.  Thank you.  I am sorry if I am being a nuisance.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * And when I run the file sharing troubleshooter from computer I on shared folder R\\TestShare, it says that I don't have permission to access the shared drive. Duh.  How do I give myself permission?  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, I discovered what the problem was. The two computers have passwords that are different by one character, which is not what I intended.  However, I now know that what I should do is to try the two spellings each time.  Thank you.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:37, 7 February 2023 (UTC)