HomeGroup Is No Longer Part of Windows 10

What Has Changed?

With the release of the Windows Version 1803, one of the changes Microsoft has executed is to remove the HomeGroup feature within Windows. (If you would like to manually update to 1803, just hit "Check for Updates" in Windows Update).

We will focus on the Homegroup changes, but for the full changelog, Click Here

What You See After Updating

After you update your PC to Windows 10 (Version 1803):

• HomeGroup won’t appear in File Explorer.
• HomeGroup won’t appear in Control Panel, which means that you can’t create, join, or leave a homegroup.
• HomeGroup won’t appear on the Troubleshoot screen when you go to Settings  > Update & Security  > Troubleshoot .
• You won’t be able to share new files and printers using HomeGroup.

If you shared Documents or Printers via the Homegroup, you should be able to still share the devices with no changes.  However, if you are looking to start sharing Printers or Documents, you will need to use the following steps to start sharing:

How to Share Printers

To share an installed printer from the primary PC that the printer is connected to other machines, you need to set up share settings for that printer.  

Once you have the printer installed, note the name of the primary PC. You can find the name of the primary PC, by clicking the Start/Windows Key, and typing in “Computer Name”, then select “View Your PC Name”.  It will be listed under “Device Name”.

1. Select the Start button, then Settings, then Devices, then Printers & Scanners
2. Choose the printer you want to share, then select Manage.
3. Select Printer Properties, then choose the Sharing tab.
4. On the Sharing tab, select Share this printer.
5. If needed, you can edit the Share name of the printer (this share name is visible from the other machines)

 

How to Share Files and Documents

Microsoft's official stance appears to be to move file sharing to OneDrive.

While that may not work for everyone, there is still a share tab so you can still share files individually:

While browsing File Explorer, "Share" will be one of the tabs at the top of File Explorer (as seen below)

As It Stands Now

Currently, we are not seeing any issues with Printer sharing ceasing to function, but we thought we would publish this article to get ahead of HomeGroup's removal.