Vista - Windows 7 networking oddity

[Questor]

Just this evening my Win7 machine refuses to "see" my Vista machines in
the 'Network' dialog. My Vista machine can access all the shared items
on the Win7 machine just fine.

Previously (before this evening) I was able to open "Network" on the W7
machine and see every one of my computers. Now, all it does is flash
the 'green bar' across the top and give me nothing but shared folders on
my W7 machine - nothing on the network. It doesn't appear to even be
trying because I don't see any acitivity on the LEDs of my switch.

Here's the strangeness: W7 machine can "find" any drive on any of my
networked machines and assign a drive letter to it BUT the Network
dialog box remains 'internal folders' only.

If I do a "Save as..." and get the dialog, I can click 'Network' and
save a file to any of my computers just fine.

How the heck do I get my machines back into my "Network" dialog box?

I've tried rebooting all my machines. I've tried running the network
troubleshooter (there's a real oxymoron) and it find nothing. I've even
tried backing out the latest five MS updates to see if they caused the
problem. Nothing works.

Questor.

 

[Questor]

Well, I guess I'll just have to live with it as networked driver letters
then. Thanks all.

Q

--->

 

[smlunatick]

Well, I guess I'll just have to live with it as networked driver letters
then.  Thanks all.

Q

--->

Try "answers.mircrosoft.com?"