Workgroup browsing crippled after SP2

[Norm Dresner]

The network still works on my wife's computer.
Any other computer can access shares on it.
She can still get to the internet via our proxy server.
She can still print on the network printers that were installed before
SP2.
She can still use My Network Places | Add Network Place and add any
specific computer's share by name.
She can still use Windows Explorer | Search and search for any specific
computer by name

But she can't browse the local workgroup through My Network Places ...

The Firewall is up and it doesn't matter whether it's enabled or not.

It's like the newly installed security features are not protecting her
computer from what's outside but protecting what's outside from her.

AFAICT she simply can't browse the network, but could do this before SP2
was installed. Also, before SP2, there were over a dozen local shares in My
Network Places. After SP2, they're all gone. I've manually restored a few
but it's very awkward to use on a large network without the browsing
feature.

I can't find anyplace in the networks setup or in security policy that
would inhibit browsing.

What am I missing?

The dirty details: Dell Inspiron; Windows XP Pro; SP2; McAfee Antivirus.

TIA
Norm

 

[Malke]

The network still works on my wife's computer.
Any other computer can access shares on it.
She can still get to the internet via our proxy server.
She can still print on the network printers that were installed
before
SP2.
She can still use My Network Places | Add Network Place and add
any
specific computer's share by name.
She can still use Windows Explorer | Search and search for any
specific
computer by name

But she can't browse the local workgroup through My Network Places
...

The Firewall is up and it doesn't matter whether it's enabled or
not.

It's like the newly installed security features are not protecting
her
computer from what's outside but protecting what's outside from her.

AFAICT she simply can't browse the network, but could do this
before SP2
was installed. Also, before SP2, there were over a dozen local shares
in My
Network Places. After SP2, they're all gone. I've manually restored
a few but it's very awkward to use on a large network without the
browsing feature.

I can't find anyplace in the networks setup or in security policy
that
would inhibit browsing.

What am I missing?

The dirty details: Dell Inspiron; Windows XP Pro; SP2; McAfee
Antivirus.

Is it possible she has a third-party firewall *and* the Windows firewall
is running?

Here is a network troubleshooter to help you narrow down the issues:

http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm

Go through that, and then post your results.

Malke

 

[Norm Dresner]

Is it possible she has a third-party firewall *and* the Windows firewall
is running?

Here is a network troubleshooter to help you narrow down the issues:

http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm

Go through that, and then post your results.

Thanks, I will use that, but the McAfee control panel explicitly says that
the firewall isn't connected, we didn't install anything else, and the
computer is less than 3 months old. As soon as I can download the try the
troubleshooter, I'll post the results.

Norm

 

[Malke]

Thanks, I will use that, but the McAfee control panel explicitly says
that the firewall isn't connected, we didn't install anything else,
and the
computer is less than 3 months old. As soon as I can download the try
the troubleshooter, I'll post the results.

Norm

You don't download the troubleshooter. You do it on line. You mentioned
something about a proxy server. Why do you have a proxy server in a
home network? Please explain your setup.

Malke

 

[Norm Dresner]

You don't download the troubleshooter. You do it on line. You mentioned
something about a proxy server. Why do you have a proxy server in a
home network? Please explain your setup.

Well, it's not really a "home network" although it's at home. We both
work here and we have anywhere between 8 & 15 computers running at any one
time. About half of them are various flavors of windows, the others are a
mix of Linux rackmount boxes and SGI's Indigo2 and Octane workstations.
Everything is tied together with a simple (TCP/IP) Ethernet network. We
routinely use only 2-3 computers for on-line work, though all of them are
capable of it. The other purpose of the network is light-weight file
sharing and printer serving from both locations.

Norm

 

[Malke]

Well, it's not really a "home network" although it's at home. We
both
work here and we have anywhere between 8 & 15 computers running at any
one
time. About half of them are various flavors of windows, the others
are a mix of Linux rackmount boxes and SGI's Indigo2 and Octane
workstations.
Everything is tied together with a simple (TCP/IP) Ethernet network.
We routinely use only 2-3 computers for on-line work, though all of
them are
capable of it. The other purpose of the network is light-weight file
sharing and printer serving from both locations.

OK, so you are running the Samba daemons on the *nix boxen and one of
those machines is the gateway for the Internet? You're using something
like Squid and so the proxy setting is correct? If you aren't really
running a proxy server for filtering, then you don't want a proxy
setting on the XP computer.

Make sure the Windows Firewall service is not running, no matter what
McAfee says. Start>Run services.msc and scroll down to Windows
Firewall. If the service is running, stop it and disable it. If that
doesn't help, then go through Hans-Georg's troubleshooter. It rather
sounds like a Computer Browser issue to me, but the troubleshooter will
help narrow things down.

I have XP SP2 boxen successfully seeing my SuSE 9.1 Pro desktop and
laptop, so it must be something in your wife's configuration. Also make
sure that simple sharing is disabled on all XP boxen.

Malke

 

[Norm Dresner]

OK, so you are running the Samba daemons on the *nix boxen and one of
those machines is the gateway for the Internet? You're using something
like Squid and so the proxy setting is correct? If you aren't really
running a proxy server for filtering, then you don't want a proxy
setting on the XP computer.

Make sure the Windows Firewall service is not running, no matter what
McAfee says. Start>Run services.msc and scroll down to Windows
Firewall. If the service is running, stop it and disable it. If that
doesn't help, then go through Hans-Georg's troubleshooter. It rather
sounds like a Computer Browser issue to me, but the troubleshooter will
help narrow things down.

I have XP SP2 boxen successfully seeing my SuSE 9.1 Pro desktop and
laptop, so it must be something in your wife's configuration. Also make
sure that simple sharing is disabled on all XP boxen.

Actually an old P2-450 running Windows 98SE is the proxy server running
WinProxy 5.1 right now. I've been using various versions of WinProxy for
the last 4 years or so and while it's not perfect, it's perfectly adequate
for our needs. The proxy setups on the various systems have been stable for
quite some time and I don't think I want to start mucking with them unless
it can be proven that it's the problem [very unlikely].
I didn't get to run the troubleshooter last night (one of my two work
sessions is typically midnight to whenever while my wife sleeps) because I
was fighting with some Real-Time Linux code but I'm pretty sure I'll get to
it tonight [I guess to be technically correct I should say (early) tomorrow
morning].
I did "disable" the WinXP SP2 Firewall and that didn't change anything,
though I haven't actually stopped it. I'll try that tonight as well.
I did disable "simple sharing" when I first set up the machine in
September but I haven't checked it since she installed SP2 and I'll do that
as well.

Norm

 

[Norm Dresner]

This morning the network neighborhood shows all of the available shares in
the whole network and clicking on Entire Network and the Workgroup shows
every computer that's sharing in the system.

No, I have no idea what I did the other night in poking around, but
obviously something I did while originally investigating the problem has
finally "taken hold" and created a solution. For the record, I did enable
much of the inter-computer messaging that had been disabled by the Firewall.
Since this computer sits behind the proxy server, I don't think that's a
problem -- and there never has been any security problem with this
computer -- or any other that uses the server -- before.

SO ... I guess the problem is solved. I just which I knew how.

Thanks to all who tried to help.

Norm

 

[Malke]

This morning the network neighborhood shows all of the available
shares in the whole network and clicking on Entire Network and the
Workgroup shows every computer that's sharing in the system.

No, I have no idea what I did the other night in poking around, but
obviously something I did while originally investigating the problem
has
finally "taken hold" and created a solution. For the record, I did
enable much of the inter-computer messaging that had been disabled by
the Firewall. Since this computer sits behind the proxy server, I
don't think that's a problem -- and there never has been any security
problem with this computer -- or any other that uses the server --
before.

SO ... I guess the problem is solved. I just which I knew how.

Glad to hear everything is working now.

Malke