Annoying WinXP networking problem - PC not showing up in network browse

[James Houston]

I'm having variations of this problem with both my office and home networks.
At the office, we have a peer-to-peer network, no domain controller, and a
mixed enviroment of Windows 98, 2000, and XP Home PCs. At home, I have 1
Windows 2000 Pro, 2 XP Pro, and 2 laptops running Windows 2000 pro and
Windows 98 which are only rarely connected to the network. Here's the
problem: at work, one of the XP Home machines cannot be seen by any other
PC in the network using My Network Places. If I click on View Workgroup
Computers, every other PC in the network is visible except for this one PC.
I can ping it using its network name, and I can access its shares using the
NET USE command. This is true for any PC on the network, including the PC
in question. I have a similar problem with the XP Pro pcs on my home
network. Rebooting those PCs helps, but after awhile they become invisible
to the Windows 2000 pc and to themselves. Anybody have any idea what's
going on here and how to fix it?

Best

Jim

 

[Chuck]

I'm having variations of this problem with both my office and home networks.
At the office, we have a peer-to-peer network, no domain controller, and a
mixed enviroment of Windows 98, 2000, and XP Home PCs. At home, I have 1
Windows 2000 Pro, 2 XP Pro, and 2 laptops running Windows 2000 pro and
Windows 98 which are only rarely connected to the network. Here's the
problem: at work, one of the XP Home machines cannot be seen by any other
PC in the network using My Network Places. If I click on View Workgroup
Computers, every other PC in the network is visible except for this one PC.
I can ping it using its network name, and I can access its shares using the
NET USE command. This is true for any PC on the network, including the PC
in question. I have a similar problem with the XP Pro pcs on my home
network. Rebooting those PCs helps, but after awhile they become invisible
to the Windows 2000 pc and to themselves. Anybody have any idea what's
going on here and how to fix it?

Best

Jim

Jim,

One of the most common causes of your problem would be a misconfigured or
overlooked personal firewall, or other security component. There are other
possibilities too. Read this article with an open mind.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/10/irregularities-in-workgroup-visibility.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/10/irregularities-in-workgroup-visibility.html

If no help yet, provide "browstat status" and "ipconfig /all" from each
computer, so we can diagnose the problem. Read this article, and linked
articles, and follow instructions precisely (download browstat!):
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp