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Running a Windows Network environment with workgroups. Recently two of the workgroups have experienced problems browsing the other PCs in the network via Network Neighborhood. The network connection is alright as I can ping other PCs or map network drives to other PCs. Basically when I click on "Entire Network", I get the "Unable to browse network" error message.
I checked the master browser settings and all the Win 9x PCs have "automatic" selected for the Browse Master value. Both workgroups consist of Windows 9x and Windows 2000 PCs. Should I have WINS installed? Is it not possible to have a mixed Win 9x-2000 PC environment and view the network at the same time? Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.
Make sure you have microsoft file and print sharing turn on both computers. Make sure your login on both machines.
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Yes, I have done all of that. These are workgroups of 6 and 13 PCs respectively and they all worked properly before. No major changes were done to the PCs or their settings.
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Sorry, did not read the question right. make sure you have a local user on the windows 2K box with same user name and password , what you enter on the username and password on the windows 98 box
windows 2000
add username brian
password windowsgame
---------------------------Windows 98 machine
when it askes you for a username please enter
brianwhen it askes you for a password please enter
windowsgames---------
there MUST be a local account setup on the windows 2K boxs that matches the username and password that your going to login on the windows 98 box.
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Hmmm. I didn't think that I needed to have every user setup as an account on all my Win2K machines. I know this is the case when I want to access a file share or printer on the Win 2K machines, but that doesn't really explain why I have lost complete network browsing capabilities from all the Win 9x PCs in these two particular workgroups. *Note - I can see the network and all other PCs just fine on the Win 2K PCs.
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can you elaborate on the LMHOST files suggestion? I have a host file where I put in the IP address of some servers that I access, is this what you are talking about?
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Are all your computers on the same subnet??
I would check.....this happen to me about 3 years ago when I was setting-up a LAN, are you running a DHCP server???? try to relase it and then renew it, if you have one.192.168.0.2 (255.255.255.0), .3 , .4 ,,, etc check the ip address on all pc's and make sure they are on the same subnet. I just used 192.168.0.X as an example... No hosts files are not the same, LMHOST file work if you don't have a WIN's box's, you can read-up on it more anywhere on the web.
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Are all your computers on the same subnet??
I would check.....this happen to me about 3 years ago when I was setting-up a LAN, are you running a DHCP server???? try to relase it and then renew it, if you have one.192.168.0.2 (255.255.255.0), .3 , .4 ,,, etc check the ip address on all pc's and make sure they are on the same subnet. I just used 192.168.0.X as an example... No hosts files are not the same, LMHOST file work if you don't have a WIN's box's, you can read-up on it more anywhere on the web.
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no, I'm not running a DHCP server. Checked the subnet on all the PCs and they are the same. After looking for any differences in both workgroups, I have discovered the following:
Each workgroup contains just one Win 2K PC and the rest are Win 9x. When using the "Find Computer" in Win 9x, all the PCs in both workgroups can be seen. However, the two Win 2K PCs don't show a "location" (workgroup name). It says "unknown" instead, whereas the Win 9x PCs state their workgroup name under "location". Could this have something to do with my problem?
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I was thinking I could disable the Browse Master setting on the Win 9x PCs and they would automatically use the Win 2K PCs as their Browse Master for network viewing. I don't even know if this is possible.
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The Win2K should by default win the election, one of them should and yes you can disable the master browser, no reason to. can you ping each of the machines? I think you need to use LMHOST files next, something is up and I think it's something to with NETBIOS, just want not sure at this time.
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yes I can ping all the machines just fine. I figured the Win2K machines would win the election, thanks for the clarification. Well it seems the problem has something to do with these two Win2K PCs because the PCs in the workgroup could browse the network just fine before these two were setup. I'll do some more research into the LMHOST file and see what happens.
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Okay, I turned off the Win2K PC in one of the workgroups so that the master browser selection would move to another PC (win9x). It did and then when I checked all the PCs in the workgroup, I was able to browse via Network Neighborhood again. Narrowing down the problem. I am unfamiliar with the LMHOST file though. Do I need to put the IP address and NetBIOS name of all the PCs in the workgroup in there or all the PCs that I want to see in the entire network?
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The LMHOST file is located in the system32 dir, I think.All really need is to have two LMHOST files one on each win2k machine pointintg to each other.
(Windows 2K) (Windows 2K)
pc1: pc2:
10.1.1.1 10.1.1.50 ===( Ip address)
computer1 computer2 =(NETBIOS name)
firstdomain seconddomain =(Workgroup)
LMHOST file for pc1
10.1.1.50 computer2 DOM:seconddomainLMHOST file for pc2
10.1.1.1 computer1 DOM:firstdomainthen you add them through your TCP/IP properties, then you will have to re-boot your computers.
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Program:
Here is a FREE program that can show you your IP taraffic on each machine, this might help you see any NETBIOS traffic coming across your network..
It's called Show traffic version 1.2, set the idle timeout to about 30 seconds. It will run on all Win platforms.
http://demosten.com/index.htm
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thanks for all the help. Temporarily I found a solution. I just edited the registry settings in the two Win2K boxes to stop being master browsers. After doing this and restarting the PC, all network browsing capabilities returned to all PCs in the workgroup. I still would like to know why Win2K PCs mixed with Win9x PCs in a workgroup doesn't work well as a master browser.
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Then you should setup a WIN's box on your LAN then, I would use Linux and load SAMBA and set it to be your WIN's server.. You really should not edit your registry to get it to browse your network, you could run into problems later...
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that's what I was thinking since I will be adding more and more Win2K PCs to the network. I'm going to see what Microsoft has to say about this as well. Thanks for the help Brian.
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