Network not viewable

[Carmel]

I have a mixed network of both WinXP, Vista and FreeBSD computers. They
had all been working fine until a few days ago. Suddenly, I can
no longer view any of the other computers on the Window's machines. I
can type in the machine's IP or BIOS name and then I can then access it.
However, when I try to view or access any of the other computers via "My
Network Places", all I receive is an error message that the workgroup
path was not found.

I have tried (I think) the usually steps to correct the problem. Since
it did work preciously, and since all of the Windows machines seem to
be suffering from the same problem, and since I can access any machine
using the IP or BIOS name, what could be causing this phenomena?

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[John Wunderlich]

I have a mixed network of both WinXP, Vista and FreeBSD computers.
They had all been working fine until a few days ago. Suddenly, I
can no longer view any of the other computers on the Window's
machines. I can type in the machine's IP or BIOS name and then I
can then access it. However, when I try to view or access any of
the other computers via "My Network Places", all I receive is an
error message that the workgroup path was not found.

I have tried (I think) the usually steps to correct the problem.
Since it did work preciously, and since all of the Windows
machines seem to be suffering from the same problem, and since I
can access any machine using the IP or BIOS name, what could be
causing this phenomena?

When you specify the machine by name, a broadcast is sent out on the
network and the target machine responds. That part seems to work.
When you try to view other computers under "My Network Places", the
computer attempts to get the list from the "Browse Master", which is
a computer that is elected to keep track of the computers on the
network. Your symptoms indicate that the Browse Master is not being
elected or is not functioning properly.

From my experience, this is almost always due to an improperly
configured firewall somewhere on the subnet. This is covered in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: "Internet firewalls can prevent
browsing and file sharing"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298804>

"Browstat.exe" is a good program for debugging these problems.
Although not specifically for XP, the following KB article addresses
a debug procedure that will still apply to XP.
"Troubleshooting the Microsoft Computer Browser Service"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188305>

HTH,
John

 

[Carmel]

When you specify the machine by name, a broadcast is sent out on the
network and the target machine responds. That part seems to work.
When you try to view other computers under "My Network Places", the
computer attempts to get the list from the "Browse Master", which is
a computer that is elected to keep track of the computers on the
network. Your symptoms indicate that the Browse Master is not being
elected or is not functioning properly.

From my experience, this is almost always due to an improperly
configured firewall somewhere on the subnet. This is covered in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: "Internet firewalls can prevent
browsing and file sharing"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298804>

"Browstat.exe" is a good program for debugging these problems.
Although not specifically for XP, the following KB article addresses
a debug procedure that will still apply to XP.
"Troubleshooting the Microsoft Computer Browser Service"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188305>

Thanks! The "browstat.exe" program solved my problem. There was a
conflict between 'samba' on the FreeBSD machine and the Window's boxes.
It seems that Windows either had to be started first or I had to
disable the 'election' feature in 'samba'.

I did some further research and discovered that Microsoft engineers have
worked extensively with the 'samba' developers to craft a more robust
and less complicated networking experience. I am assuming that this
annoyance has been corrected in newer versions of Win32/64. I could not
find any documentation on manually configuring Microsoft's master
browsing election choices. Samba, on the other hand, offers hundreds
(literally).

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Carmel |::::=======
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|

 

[John Wunderlich]

Thanks! The "browstat.exe" program solved my problem. There was a
conflict between 'samba' on the FreeBSD machine and the Window's
boxes. It seems that Windows either had to be started first or I
had to disable the 'election' feature in 'samba'.

I did some further research and discovered that Microsoft
engineers have worked extensively with the 'samba' developers to
craft a more robust and less complicated networking experience. I
am assuming that this annoyance has been corrected in newer
versions of Win32/64. I could not find any documentation on
manually configuring Microsoft's master browsing election choices.
Samba, on the other hand, offers hundreds (literally).

Glad you found your problem. There are a couple of ways to
configure Master Browsing election choices. All, I believe, involve
editing the registry. A couple articles describing this are:

"TCP/IP and NBT configuration parameters for Windows XP"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314053/>

"Specifying Browser Computers"
<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc959923.aspx>

"How Computer Browser Service Works"
<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737661(WS.10).aspx#w2k3tr_netbro_how_oqjp>

HTH,
John