Here are the most likely reasons and fixes if participants no longer appear in your Zoom waiting room after switching to a new PC:
Step-by-Step Troubleshooting
Confirm you’re using your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) If you start a meeting without enabling “Use Personal Meeting ID (PMI) when starting an instant meeting,” you may be launching a new meeting session instead of your usual personal room. Participants joining your old PMI link will then appear in a different waiting room that you can’t see.
Check Waiting Room settings in the Zoom web portal
Go to Settings → Meetings → Security.
Ensure Waiting Room is toggled on.
Review the sub-setting “Who should go into the waiting room?” and confirm it matches your intended flow (e.g., everyone, guests only, or users not in your account).
Verify in-meeting controls During a live meeting, open the Security menu and confirm that Waiting Room is active. If it seems stuck, toggle it off and then on again to refresh the feature.
Check the Participants panel Open the Participants panel to see if attendees are listed there. You can also enable “Play Join and Leave Sound” to get an audio alert when someone enters the waiting room.
Review how participants are joining If you send meeting links through calendar invites (like Outlook), some attendees might be joining a different session link. Try copying the Zoom link directly from your meeting and emailing it instead.
Update Zoom and restart Make sure both you and your participants are using the latest Zoom version. If issues persist, sign out and back in, or reinstall the Zoom desktop app.
Summary
After upgrading your PC, the issue usually stems from launching a different meeting ID or misconfigured waiting room settings. Re-enabling your Personal Meeting ID, verifying Waiting Room settings in the web portal, and checking the Security menu during meetings typically resolves the problem.