Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
I'm having an awful time trying to get my simple home network working
between all my computers, since the elimination of Workgroups in Win
10. Basically, I have three desktops, mine, my wife's, and one that's
acts as a file server for backups. In additiona there are three
portables of various ages, but all running either Win 10 home or pro.
My desktop can see the files on any of the computers. My Thinkpad can
see my desktops files, but not those on my wife's computer, or the
file server that I want to use for backups. Is there any writeup
somewhere that explains how to set these computers up so that each one
can see the files on the other computers?

Are multiple cascaded routers involved ?

Some networking setups you can easily build at
home, cause all the computers to be able to see
the Internet, but some of the computers cannot
communicate with the other computers. You are fooled
by all your working web browsers, into thinking
there is nothing wrong with your networking setup.

*******

On each computer, you can use

ipconfig

and get the network address of each computer
right now.

Then, you can use "ping tests".

192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3
| |
---+--------+-------------+--
|
|
192.168.1.4

In that example, node "2" could try

ping 192.168.1.3
ping 192.168.1.4

and verify that the other computers are "reachable".

Node "4" could try

ping 192.168.1.2
ping 192.168.1.3

And so on.

That's to verify they can actually see one another.

There is also the topic of subnets and netmasks.
But you have to start somewhere.

Even being able to draw us a picture with some IP
addresses doodled on it, is a start.

Paul