Question

Vista cannot connect to other PCs on my network by Hostname

Asked by: gmahler5th

So today I (rather stupidly) tried adding a switch between two of my machines and my LInksys router.  Thisled to complete disaster, from Vista's inability to browse other PCs through Network folder and ultimately having to reconfigure my router so the PCs can connect to the Internet

So now all PCs can connect to the Internet, but my main power workstation, Vista Business, can RDP and connect to 3 other XP machines on the local network by IP only, and I cannot connect using Hostname of the machines, neither do these machines appear in Network folder as they have for the past month since using this Linksys router.

net view \\machinename failes with the following error:  "System 53 has occurred.  The network path was not found."  The XP machines cannot connect to this box either via RDP or file sharing by hostname either, only by IP address.

I installed the Link-Layer Topoligy Discovery Responder on one of the XP machines, and the other did not require it because it already was included in the SP that is installed on it.

So now from my main Vista workstation, I cannot RDP to other workstations or create file shares by anything other than IP address which is unacceptable because Hostnames were working just fine for the last month.

I even tried enabling NetBios over TCPIP on all the machines, and restarted them, to no avail.

None of my PCs are running Norton or any other Anti Virus so that is not the cause of the problem.

Also I have disabled the PC Firewall during troubleshooting to see if Firewall interfered with NetBios but that doesn't get me very far either.

I'm desparate to restore this capability to my Vista workstation as it's my primary workstation and it kills my productivity without having friendly hostnames or Network browsing enabled.  Please help!

And yes, all are in the HOME workgroup, all have the same subnet and share the same range of IP addresses E.g. 192.168.1.x

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Asked On
2008-09-24 at 16:40:52ID23760868
Tags

Microsoft

,

Vista Business

,

SP1

,

Linksys Router WRT150N

Topics

Windows Vista

,

Net BIOS and NetBEUI

,

Windows NT Networking

Participating Experts
2
Points
0
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: psantiangeliPosted on 2008-09-24 at 17:09:03ID: 22565217

hi,
can you run "nbtstat -n" on each pc and post here the output?

 

by: gmahler5thPosted on 2008-09-24 at 17:17:00ID: 22565249

The Vista machine says

Failed to access NetBT driver -- NetBT may not be loaded


The WinXP machine says

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.SEATTLE.000>nbtstat -n

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.x.x] Scope Id: []

                NetBIOS Local Name Table

       Name               Type         Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    SEATTLE        <00>  UNIQUE      Registered
    HOME           <00>  GROUP       Registered
    SEATTLE        <20>  UNIQUE      Registered
    HOME           <1E>  GROUP       Registered
    HOME           <1D>  UNIQUE      Registered
    ..__MSBROWSE__.<01>  GROUP       Registered

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.SEATTLE.000>

 

by: psantiangeliPosted on 2008-09-24 at 17:45:07ID: 22565363

Ok, If NetBT fails could be:
1. No rights to run NBTSTAT.
2. Missing NetBT parameters in registry.
3. NetBIOS is not enabled.

You can find help here:
http://www.chicagotech.net/netbios&wins.htm#Failed%20to%20access%20NetBT%20driver%20--%20%20NetBT%20may%20not%20be%20loaded

 

by: gmahler5thPosted on 2008-09-24 at 18:42:37ID: 22565607

LIke this is going to help.  My ipconfig /all says NetBios is diabled, but it's clearly enabled on my IPv4 network card properties.  How can I get it to the Enabled state?

 

by: ChiefITPosted on 2008-09-27 at 04:30:35ID: 22586308

Are you also running IP version 6?

 

by: psantiangeliPosted on 2008-09-27 at 06:59:30ID: 22587093

Hi, is your "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper" up and running?

 

by: gmahler5thPosted on 2008-09-27 at 08:12:37ID: 22587420

- Enter the registry
- HKEYLocalMachines/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/NetBt/Parameters
- Double Click "transportbindname"
- enter the value \Device\ (use the backslashes) hit ok.
- reboot

The long answer is at: http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3881172&SiteID=17

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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