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Cannot see networked computer in Network Places reliably (windows xp/pro sp2)

I have a small ethernet network that is wired except for one computer that is on a wireless 802.11b AP. Many times I go to Network Neighborhood and I cannot see all of the other computers, but sometimes I can. If I search for them they can be found and the shared directorys accessed. Sometimes they cannot even be found, but if I wait for 30 minutes they are usually available. This often happens when I connect my lap top to the network. Is there a way to do a "refresh" to make all of the computers look around and populate their Network Neighborhood? This phenomenon happens on all four of teh computers on my network. All the computers are running Xp/Pro sp2.

ruaware

sounds like an ip address problem, make sure all ip address are similiar like 168.192.1.xx and that all are in the same workgroup/domain.

if they are, what settings are you using in the ip area?

JonSh

Actually, to me it doesn't sound like an IP address problem, or it would never work correctly. I've seen network neighboorhood do stuff like this, but it was usually netbeui or namespace or master brower election related. Might want to try adding each machine to your host table so it won't nbeed to search.

Your host table (under xp) is probably C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts. It has comment lines that start with a "#", and it will have at least one entry that looks like this:

localhost 127.0.0.1

I'd add the following on each machine (and I'm using example IP addresses):

machine1 192.168.1.100
machine2 192.168.1.101
machine3 192.168.1.102
machine4 192.168.1.103

you could even add (for example):

router 192.168.1.1

See if this helps

stevemjp

defo not an IP address problem.

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GazzerH

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howard_newkirk

ASKER

Well, the net use thing works great! Thanks for the answer. It's kind of a funky thing to have to do, but we are dealing with MSFT so I suppose I shouldn't expect too much!