Computer not showing up when homegroup provider disabledl

Hello everyone,

I have run into some networking problems and I think I have narrowed it down to the homegroup provider.

I have 4 windows 8 pro x64 computers connected to a router. Up until now, I have been able to disable the homegroup provider service because I don't want to use the homegroup and don't want to see it in my file explorer. I have been able to connect to all the shared computer drives up until I tried to disable the homegroup provider on my netbook. When I did this I lost the ability to connect to other shared computers. I re-enabled the provider, however I still cannot see drives on other computers. I can now see my netbook on the other shared computers.

Any ideas of what is going on?

Thanks
-S

Here is something that might help. I have access to the internet and I can get to my network computers if I type their address into the file explorer bar for example one of my compters is called Alpha1. If I type \\Alpha1\OS.Drive I can navigate to the C: drive on my computer Alpha1. I just cannot see the icon for the computer Nor can I see the icon for the netbook which I am working on. Usually when I am on say Alpha1 I can find Alpha1 under the network branch too, but this is not the case on my netbook. I cannot find it under the network branch when I am on my netbook. Hope this makes sense.

Maybe I need to uninstall the adapter and reinstall it? Am I missing TCP/IP? Why would I be able to get to the internet if I didn't have TCP/IP?

Again any help would be much appreciated.

OK I found this:

http://www.eightforums.com/network-sharing/13958-win-8-tcp-ip-network-adapters-settings.html

and it links to this

Error Message: In Order to Configure TCP/IP, You Must Install and Enable a Network Adapter Card

Now my question is the solution seems to be to revert to a backup, but what if I don't have a backup of my netbook? I have a copy of windows 8 Pro x64 on a USB drive that I use to install on my computers. Can I use this? How would I use it?

Thanks again.

-S