Network Discovery Immediately Disables

Question

Network Discovery Immediately Disables

Shaggy H 111

There are numerous tutorials on how to set up network discovery on a private network for Windows 11. Most talk about simply going into Advanced Sharing Settings and toggling Network Discovery on. If I try that, then go back up one level (or do ANYTHING else, such as reboot, go to a different screen, or anything else I could think to try), then come back in, the settings are Off again. In other words, changing that setting does nothing, as the setting reverts as soon as I go anywhere else.

Some AI stuff then suggests that this is a firewall issue and talk about going into Windows Defender Firewall and enabling the Network Discovery group members. Those members simply do not exist, neither in apps, nor in inbound rules.

A further suggestion was to use PowerShell with this command:

Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup "Network Discovery" -Enabled True

(I may have a typo in there, but it looks about right).

This also fails with an error that No MSFT_NetFirewallRule objects found with property "DisplayGroup" equal to "Network Discovery". Verify the value of the property and retry.

I have also compared to a different computer, and everything appears to be there and working on that other computer. The toggles work on that computer, the Network Discovery rules exist in the inbound rules of Windows Defender Firewall, and so forth. Everything is as all the tutorials think it should be. That is not the case on this Surface Pro.

From this I take it that Network Discovery group simply does not exist on this computer and I have no idea why. AI is downright condescending on this topic, and every tutorial I have seen appears to assume that it is user error and I'm just not looking in the right place. By this point, it's pretty clear that's not the case. That rule group does not exist.

I also did a Network Reset, which had no impact.

The situation appears to be that the Network Discovery group does not exist on this computer, and I'm looking for a way to solve that.

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3 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

It seems you are experiencing issues with enabling Network Discovery on your Windows 11 device, where the setting does not persist after you navigate away from the settings page. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the issue:

Check Dependency Services: Ensure that the following services are running:
- DNS Client
- Function Discovery Resource Publication
- SSDP Discovery
- UPnP Device Host
You can check this by typing services.msc in the Run dialog (Win + R) and looking for these services.
Firewall Configuration: Since you mentioned that the Network Discovery rules do not exist in Windows Defender Firewall, you may need to manually create them. To do this:
- Open the Windows Defender Firewall settings.
- Go to Advanced settings.
- Under Inbound Rules, create a new rule for Network Discovery, allowing traffic on the necessary ports (UDP 3702 for WSD and others as needed).
PowerShell Command: The command you mentioned, Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup "Network Discovery" -Enabled True, may fail if the rules are not present. Instead, you can create a new firewall rule using PowerShell:
```
   New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Network Discovery" -Direction Inbound -Protocol UDP -LocalPort 3702 -Action Allow
```
Adjust the ports as necessary based on your network configuration.
Group Policy Settings: If your device is part of a domain or managed environment, group policies may be preventing changes. Check with your IT administrator or review the Group Policy settings related to network discovery.
Network Reset: Since you have already performed a network reset, ensure that you reconfigure your network settings afterward, including re-enabling Network Discovery.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, consider checking for any Windows updates or performing a repair installation of Windows 11, as there may be underlying system issues affecting the functionality.

References:

Answer 2

Lucus-V 13,645 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Shaggy H,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum. I'm happy to help.

Please open Services and make sure that these services are Status Running and Startup Type Automatic:

DNS Client
Function Discovery Resource Publication
SSDP Discovery
UPnP Device Host

If there're services that stopped, please Start it manually and set its Startup Type as Automatic.

After that, you will be able to enable Network Discovery.

I hope that above information is helpful to you.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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Shaggy H 111 Reputation points

2025-12-28T16:37:10.3933333+00:00

I suppose that I didn't explicitly state that I had already done those steps. They are some of the numerous 'solutions' to this problem that exist on the web, and I had tried all that I had found...except for the one that worked. Enabling those services might well be useful. I'm certainly not going to disable them, but they weren't the solution. The Network Discovery group of rules was simply missing from Windows Firewall, and enabling services did nothing for that problem. The rules had to be restored.

This solution might work for other variations of this problem, but not for the scenario where the necessary rules simply do not exist.

Answer 3

Shaggy H 111

The answer was that the network discovery rules were simply missing from the target device. They couldn't be turned on, they didn't exist. Why that was the case is not clear. One suggestion that they might have been blown away by some Microsoft Update, but that was only pure speculation based on there not being many suitable alternatives.

The solution, for anybody who finds this was running this line from a command prompt:

netsh advfirewall reset

This is kind of a brutalist approach, and might have some undesired side effects, but it restored the missing rules. It restored a whole bunch of rules. It also wiped away any rules I had added, so I had to then add those rules back in, but it did restore the missing rules that I needed, which was the entire Network Discovery group. The consequence of needing to add back in a few rules I had recently added, was a minor inconvenience.

Lucus-V 13,645 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-29T02:25:21.72+00:00

Hi Shaggy H,
I'm glad to hear that you have managed to resolve the issue.

If you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to Microsoft Q&A forum.
Mystixor 0 Reputation points

2026-09-23T15:43:49.8333333+00:00

I was facing the exact the same issue. While netsh advfirewall reset does end up fixing it, there is indeed a less destructive approach:

In the firewall, both for "Inbound Rules" and "Outbound Rules", you want to click "New Rule...", select "Predefined", and then pick "Network Discovery" and "File and Printer Sharing" (you need to go through the process for both of these separately). I am not sure if it is necessary to select every single available option for these, but I did and this fully fixed the issue for me.

Thanks for leading me on the right path with your self-answer. Official support in this thread is utterly useless as per usual.