Windows Homegroup is great for sharing documents, pictures, and printers between computers on your home network. If you’ve had it set up for a while, you may have noticed that the ghosts of old computer hang around in your Homegroup list. Here’s how to banish them.
Start by opening File Explorer on any computer connected to the Homegroup. In the navigation pane on the left, scroll down and then expand the Homegroup folder. Note that if you’re on a computer running Windows 8 or later and you’re signed in with a Microsoft account, you’ll also see a user folder under the Homegroup folder that you’ll need to expand. If you’re on a Windows 7 computer, you’ll just see the Homegroup folder.
In that folder, you’ll see a list of the PCs in the Homegroup. PCs that are unavailable on the network are dimmed. Here’s a caveat, though. If a computer is asleep, turned off, or just disconnected from the network, it will show as unavailable. Make sure that you’re removing a computer that you actually want to remove. If you’re not sure, make sure that all your current computers are turned on, not asleep, and are connected to the network. That said, if you do end up removing the wrong computer from your Homegroup, it’s easy enough to add it again.
Click the name of any unavailable PC.
On the right, click the “Remove <computername> from the homegroup” link. You won’t get any confirmation about the removal; it will just happen.
And that’s it. The computer will no longer be listed in the Homegroup. Why Microsoft didn’t include the ability to remove a computer in the Homegroup control panel, there’s no telling. But it’s easy to get those old computers off your list once you know where to look.
