Unable to browse Microsoft Windows Network

You probably have problems with your DNS server.
Can you browse using an IP address instead of the computer name?
Try to use \\192.168.0.1 intead of \\computer

If this works, look at your DNS server: Does it contain respective recordsin your Forward Lookup Zone (its name should be identical to your domain name)?

Hi!

Yes, I can ping only by IP address. Ping -a doesn't resolve the name. Our domain name is different from the domain name of the office I'm in right now. When I browse from my pc it takes some time and then I get the sign of my domain (DOMAIN A) under the windows network and can't see another domain name (DOMAIN B). Viceversa, when I browse the network from the server in another domain (DOMAIN B), I can see only (DOMAIN B), an neither mine nor any other colleagues computers from DOMAIN A which came with me.

Is tere trust relations between the domains?
They should be configured as a forest.

When 2 domain are part of the same forest, their DNS servers are sharing data automaticaly and you can browse within both domains (with the right permissions).

DNS has nothing at all to do with network neighbourhood browsing so dont even go there

If you want to utilise my network places you need to enable - and sometimes enforce netbios - you do this under the WINS tab of your NIC settings on your server - you usually need to disable windows firewall also as its a nightmare

you will need to reboot the server once you have forced netbios as well as potentially running nbtstat -RR on the server - this re registers netbios settings

Hi!

I've been setting up dns, wins and dhcp and NIC all the day. Now I can ping by fqdn and open shared resources. However, I was expecting that I will be able to browse the network, however, I can only see DomainA network neighbourhood from a DomainA computers and not DomainB computers. The same happens when I try to browse from DomainB computers, i.e. I see domainB in network neighbourhood only.

another thing is that now when I ping computers which where in domanB by netbios name they're resolved as follows: computername.domainA. However, computers are joined to domainB

hi, there

DNS
What you really need as to DNS is a DNS Primary Server preferable in the Head Office
you need an extra subzone for each network so that you will be able to correctly resolve your DNS querries. then the DNS server in the Remote office is now only a secondary DNS and then replicate between those.

Each of these sites also needs a Masterbrowser that is best met by creating a master browser "Head Quarter" and a Secondary Browser this is then in the remote office. Be sure that no master browser neither browser selection's take place in the domain's.

This is my recommendation and will work like a charm afterwords, if you need Microsoft kb articles on the Master browswer plan let me know.

Best regards
Cooledit

no. again. DNS has absolutely nothing at all to do with network neighbourhood browsing...nothing whatsoever....this is purely netbios based...you need a wins server at each site if you want to browse network places across sites

Hi! I have wins running in every office. Even here, where I can't browse the network I've installed a wins server even if there're no pre-Windows 2000 pcs any more. Only for NT Server, which am going to get rid of soon. The latest news are that I can now ping machines in this office from my pc not only by IP address but also by netbios names. The only problem is that I can't see the domain in explorer when I wish to browse. What is the reason? Everything seems to be fine except this particular thing. I need to be able to browse network resources (shares and printers) but the domain just doesn't want to show up.

hi, there

here is an article on master

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188001
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/cnet/cnfi_brs_jbji.mspx?mfr=true

so if you read these articles you will clearly see the benefit of adding a subzone to DNS Primary and replicate to secondary DNS.

Jay
I'll elaborate on this imagine you create a new http page for which you need the world to access, there iis a reason that you will need to update all the primary DNS servers to be able to get to the page if it is not in the DNS registry then you will not access it. The same count for the problem here there are 2 different domains so also imagine that both of those is on a different subnet now here is the logic the 2 DNS servers that are in the different subnet/domains do not know each other but if I create a sub zone in each office creating a Domain FQDN on each server or make the DNS Primary and secondary then I have now the same as what will be created at a ISP.  Of cause there also need to be a trust relation ship between the 2 domains. And if you have older systems there you also need WINS.

Cooledit

cooledit - i do know what DNS does :) i would hope so or i would be in the wrong industry - my point here, is that DNS is a replacement for netbios agreed?? now network neighbourhood is purely a netbios technology - it always have been and always will be - DNS doesnt come into play at all with network neighbourhood - two very different technologies....thats what i am getting at....if the issue is that network places is not available, then it ties to netbios and not dns :)

I did as per your advise. What I noticed is that if I do: net view /DOMAIN:<domain name> I can browse computers on a local domain. I can also search for computers from the windows, however after the name of PC in the search result windows I see that it's in Unknown folder... The only thing that doesn't work is the network browsing. Computers within domainA can browse the network. However our laptops belonging to another domain once connected to DomainA can't browse the network resources. What is the reason for it?

One more thing. If I run net view /NETWORK:NW I get the error 1204 as follows: The specified network provider name is invalid.

As long as domain A and domain B will not be members of the same forest you will conitnue encountering problems like this
 "However our laptops belonging to another domain once connected to DomainA can't browse the network resources"

I will explain. We have in our office A domain which is DomainA for example. When we have visitors comming to our office A they connect their laptops to the network, obtain ip addresses from DHCP and can start browsing the network right away even if their computers where added to absolutely different domain in their offices. When I browse the network in our office during they are connected (or a bit after they've been disconnected) I can see our domain name and computers as well as the domain name and computer of the visitor. Of course, there are no domain trusts between such domains. This is what I've been expected to see when I came to our subsidiary in another country, and this is the way it used to work before the second server was reinstalled. The server was installed and set up before I was employed by the company so I have no idea how it was set p before. As for wins it runs on old NT 4 server and it was not touched at all. The 2003 Server which was recently reinstalled was not configured correctly as it was before and I believe that was the reason why we could not browse the network during our visit. The problem remains and I'm asking for help on this issue.

Thank you!