Turn off network Discovery: Still able to browse network

Question

In Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings, I have checked the box for "Turn off Network Discovery".

Yet I am still able to login to servers on the network. I would have thought that I would no longer be able to do that. Did I misunderstand something?

Also in the network adapter settings, what does disabling "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" do? Is this separate from the Advanced sharing settings?

Thanks...

Answer 1

To explain Your Scenario :

What is network discovery ?

Network discovery is a network setting that affects whether your computer can see (find) other computers and devices on the network and whether other computers on the network can see your computer.

So now i turned off the network discovery now what will happen :

It will prevents your computer from seeing other network computers and devices and prevents people on other network computers from seeing your computer.

What Happens when you turn on network discovery :

From Technet

When enabled, the Network Discovery method gathers information about devices on your network, like the other discovery methods that are available in SMS do. However, the Network Discovery method is unique because, besides computers, it also finds network devices such as printers, routers, and bridges. Basically, the Network Discovery method finds any device on the network that has an IP address.

Now why i able to view other computers :

Network Discovery uses SNMP to discover routers and subsets. SMS(system mange server) Network Trace uses this data to provide information about the health of network links between SMS site systems.When you select the topology discovery type, Network Discovery discovers subnets and creates DDRs for network devices that have an SNMP agent. DDRs contain information about each identified resource.

With the topology discovery type, Network Discovery first connects to the local router (default gateway) to collect IP addresses from its ipRouteNextHop routing table. Network Discovery uses this information to find other network devices that are connected to the router.

Network Discovery attempts to query the specified DHCP servers to retrieve the active leases and defined subnet lists that are configured on that server. Network Discovery then attempts to resolve the IP address to a name for each network device and subnet that it discovers.

With the topology discovery type, Network Discovery first connects to the local router (default gateway) to collect IP addresses from its ipRouteNextHop routing table. Network Discovery uses this information to find other network devices that are connected to the router.

Note that you turned off network discovery in your computer so that your computers cant access your computer,But other network computers are not turned off discovery,so you will be able to view other computers.