Windows 11 Network Discovery Not Working — How to Actually Fix It

Why Windows 11 Network Discovery Keeps Turning Itself Off

If you have spent any time trying to share files between Windows 11 computers, you have probably seen this: you open File Explorer, click Network, and either nothing shows up or you get the message "Network discovery is turned off."

You turn it back on. It works for a day. Then it stops again.

This is not a bug you did something wrong to cause. It is a fundamental architectural problem with how Windows handles network discovery services — and Microsoft has not fixed it in years.

Here is what is actually happening.

The Root Cause

Windows network discovery depends on four background services running simultaneously:

Function Discovery Resource Publication (FDResPub)
SSDP Discovery (SSDPSRV)
UPnP Device Host (upnphost)
DNS Client (Dnscache)

Any one of these stopping — due to an update, a power event, or Windows deciding to optimize resources — causes network discovery to silently fail. The toggle in Settings shows "On" but nothing works.

The Manual Fix

Open Services (Win + R → services.msc) and set each of these four services to Automatic startup:

Function Discovery Resource Publication
SSDP Discovery
UPnP Device Host
DNS Client

Then restart each service and toggle network discovery off and back on in Settings → Network and Internet → Advanced network settings.

This works. Until Windows updates and resets one of the services again.

Why the Manual Fix Keeps Breaking

Windows updates frequently reset service startup types. A cumulative update in late 2024 was particularly aggressive about this, affecting thousands of office setups that had previously working network discovery.

There is no permanent fix inside Windows itself. You are fighting the OS.

A Better Approach

This is exactly the problem Oxolan was built to solve. Instead of relying on Windows network discovery — which depends on those four fragile services — Oxolan uses its own discovery protocol that runs independently of Windows networking stack.

Install it on each PC once. Every machine running Oxolan appears in the sidebar automatically, regardless of whether Windows network discovery is working. No services to babysit, no settings that reset after updates.

Get Oxolan for Windows

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do computers show up in Network one day and disappear the next? One of the four discovery services stopped running. Windows does this automatically during updates or power events.

Does this affect Windows 10 too? Yes, but it is significantly worse on Windows 11 due to changes in how the OS manages background services.

Will setting services to Automatic permanently fix it? Usually not. Windows updates reset service configurations. It typically breaks again within a few weeks.

Is there a Group Policy fix? There are Group Policy settings that help in domain environments, but they require IT admin access and do not work on Home editions of Windows.