When trying to join a domain you may see an error advising ‘The network path was not found’

This error can occur after you have entered domain credentials to setup the domain connection.  You can resolve the problem where the network path was not found by making a couple of changes on the computer you are working from.

First action is to change the network setting of the device to ‘Private’.

When changing to a private connection this enables network discovery features as opposed to a public connection where these are not available. This is because public networks can be full of devices that you do not want to be able to connect to you.

Private networks are likely to be used at home or in businesses to enable sharing between devices on the same network.

When first connecting to a network you are likely to receive a message asking what type of network it is and ‘Private’ can be chosen from this area. Alternatively, if it needs to be changed from a Public to a Private you can do this from the Network and Sharing Centre on a Windows 7 device by clicking on the link underneath the network name.

Windows 10

For Windows 10, the instructions are slightly different:

1.Access the option via the Settings app

2. Choose Network & Internet then select the network you are connected to.

3. Choose the option to ‘Make This PC Discoverable’ and enable this to connect as a private network, leaving it off for a public network.

4. Should you wish to make any further advanced changes these can be made from ‘Change Advance Sharing Settings’ via the control panel.

Firewalls

If you were still experiencing any issues you may need to amend settings on the firewall of your anti-virus or disable that firewall in order to use the Windows firewall. Public and Private networks use different firewall settings and these change when applying the network type. You can also adjust them manually from the firewall settings within Security menus.  This allows you to make changes to particular programs so that not all will be affected.