Ping to Windows 10 not working if "file and printer sharing" is turned off?
Because the File and printer sharing settings include the ability to deny/allow ICMP traffic. You can actually see this by navigating to the following:
- Click the
Start
button - Search for
Windows Firewall
- Select
Advanced Settings
on the left - In the left pane select
Inbound Rules
- In the right pane look for the rules titled
File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request - ICMPv4-In)
(Source)
You can see an example from my laptop (with File and printer sharing turned on) directly below:
Taking it a step further, if you want to leave File and printer sharing off but still allow "pings," you can enable the appropriate rules shown within the red box in the picture.
I had issues ping-ing a Windows 10 VM, even if I turned on the file and printer sharing rule.
So I added the following:
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="ping" protocol=ICMPV4 dir=in action=allow
Warning: this command will apply the rule to the Private, Public, and Domain network profiles.