Good-bye, HomeGroups

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Microsoft has officially announced that HomeGroups will be completely deprecated in the next version of Windows 10 – presumably version 1803. Those of
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MrBrian

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+1 re Dropbox.

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I never understood the need for (benefits of) HomeGroups, and never used them. Don’t know what it offered over workgroups.

My workgroup works like a charm — just open the network in the target PC and open or copy files from the source PC just as if they were on the current computer. Can’t get any easier than that.

 

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wdburt1, PKCano

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woody wrote:

In more recent years, I’ve basically given up on Windows local networking. Too much hassle, and it broke too frequently. Now, I share files using Dropbox. Works like a champ, on any version of Windows.

Woody, do you use Dropbox for sharing between your home computers? That seems to go against the whole idea of local networking.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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For Windows 10, Do you know where the registry keys are for switching a network connection from public to private? I have to use the HomeGroup setup to properly configure a private network.

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I’ve never really gotten the hang of Homegroups, and neither have my family. We all use things like email, Dropbox, and Google Drive to share files. We like things that *just work*… and Microsoft things just… don’t work as often as we’d like them to.

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HomeGroups really wont be missed as a day to day item, and I seldom use it, except as you say; Its a wonderful network tool. Got a few machines that just wont “see each other” or share resources? not a problem set up HomeGroup. Then take them all out one by one and “Lo & Behold” they all work and reliably from that day forward.

That’s just simple networking, in a corperate networking scenario setting access permissions is a nightmare at the best of times on top of the plethora of network protocols that abound, but if you wish to keep sensitive folders as private or away from “little fingers” that just love finding that the delete Button makes stuff disappear, well you get the picture;

If anyone’s done any networking you’ll find, and there’s no doubt many in here on varying scales, you’ll know that if it doesent work right first time your in for an awful long laborious time in the mysterious world of DHCP, IPV4, NETBIOS over IP, SMB, setting static IP’s and if the machines are many and on different floors, its the best workout ever, even better than the “Fitness Machines” they sell on TV, that you pay to own, whereas instead you get paid to workout. 😉

That’s really not even taking in to account mismatched hardware, cables, router settings etc for which generally a refusal to work with HomeGroups has led me a few times to fault find hardware issues, its that reliable.

All those folks on Win10 Home versions, where networking is sporadic at best are in for a shock the next edition (1803??), Win7-8-8.1 users can sit back and smirk unless you have a Win10XX home version on the network. Even though, the selfie addict, Donna says it’ll be depreciated which means it’ll still work but I have no doubt the next edition will bring problems.

Seems to me the all too pervasive “Cloud” as a Home networking solution is like a backdoor network and those on Data usage plans its really not a cheap solution. Now “Net Neutrality” has bit the dust is it going to be a viable option? I can see ISP’s throttling traffic they neither understand nor care about to force users on to some sort of premium package.

Not an outstanding day in the Annuls of M$ IMHO 🙁

 

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Running up and down floors.  Good for a laugh.  Thanks.

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Haven’t used Homegroups in years, a flash drive or dropbox is suffice for our home PC’s

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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I never used Homegroups myself.  When I first upgraded to Windows 7, I still had two PCs running XP, and XP doesn’t use Homegroups.  Not long after that, I upgraded one of the two XP PCs to 7 and took the other offline, but it was not too long before I had set up two of the PCs to dual-boot with Linux, and it doesn’t do Homegroups either (as far as I know).

That said, though, I don’t doubt that a lot of people DO use them, and once again we have Microsoft removing features that a lot of people want.  The code churn from adding all kinds of new “features” wasn’t enough, apparently… they needed even more churn from removing features people use.

Why does every single thing I hear about Windows these days fill me with thoughts of “here they go again?”

 

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BobbyB wrote:

Even though, the selfie addict, Donna says it’ll be depreciated which means it’ll still work but I have no doubt the next edition will bring problems.

Woody said deprecated. She said, “Starting with this build, the HomeGroup service is no longer operational in Windows 10.”

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The linked blog wasn’t dated (that I could see), and I presumed the original deprecation Dona mentioned related to when WinX was first rolled out, and that it was now being removed, as they said it ‘eventually’ would be.

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December 19, 2017 10:03 AM.

That blog post was long. :/

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Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17063 for PC was clearly published on the date you quoted. I referred to its link to “Feature Deprecation” on Windows 10 Specifications & Systems Requirements, I was unable to find the date it originally stated:

Homegroup: This feature may continue to function on machines with the Creators Update installed; however, Homegroup will sunset in the release that follows

Apologies, I should have been clearer the first time… sorry.

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Changes to file sharing over a network in Windows 10

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