The Fabulous Disappearing Network
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Thread: The Fabulous Disappearing Network

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    Question The Fabulous Disappearing Network

    I am having a minor problem (its more of an inconvienence than a problem) with a number of PC's losing sight of the network via their network neighborhood or explorer. They can however see everything on the network if you use UNC and hit a specific drive or machine. Its been worked around at the moment by creating shortcuts to the shared resources but the natives are getting restless. Change is not a welcome thing around here. If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.
    I'll try to give some background on hardware/software: The pc's with the problem are running win95 on a few and win98 on others. All are running TCP/IP over 100BT ethernet. The two servers on the network are a Dell 4400 running w2k and a DECalpha 5000 running NT4. Switches are two cisco 2900 series and an asante intrastack. The network has approximately 60 workstations on it (mac and pc) and the routing is being done from the w2k server. This is a recent change due to the death of our old router so I wondered if the problem might lie there, but I'm really not sure. Thanks.

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    What you are asking is how to get browsing services to work, correct?

    The windows browsing service (the ability to browse the network via network neighborhood) requires either NetBeui or NetBios. NetBeui can be installed as a protocol and NetBios can be enabled to run with TCP/IP - right click on network neighborhood, properties, scroll down and dbl-click on TCP/IP, select the NetBIOS tab and check the box enabled. If this still does not solve the problem (ie the box is grayed out), check your DHCP server and make sure that it is set to use NetBIOS over TCP/IP or install NetBEUI.
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    Yes, thats what I'm after is getting the browsing to work. Checked the TCP/IP properties like you suggested and the NetBios box was grayed out so I checked the server and it is set to run NetBios over TCP/IP. We're not running DHCP though so would that have an effect on the NetBios? Also, if NetBeui would solve the problem that would be great but is NetBeui good for a network with 50 or 60 workstations on it? I've read that its good for small networks around 10 to 15 but have not heard anything about larger ones. Finally, what would be the reasoning behind this? The workstations in question are all computers that have never had NetBeui installed on them or NetBios but have been able to browse the network. The fact that one day a workstation can browse and the next it can't seems a little odd. Hopefully it'll make more sense to you.

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    Are there any Computer Name duplications on the network? If your old router that went tits up, segregated the network, then it could have allowed for two different machines to operate with the same Comp name (Bob in Sales and Bob in HR). If the new routing system in Win2K was not set to segregate then the systems would have conflicts with the Comp names and not show in Net Neighborhood. Since it is a TCP/IP network, the comp name would not affect functionality of the network resources, just the browsing. Might be something to look into.
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    No on the duplicate names. The only difference between the old and new is the old router was not segregating the network where as the w2k machine now is. Not sure if I added this or not but losing the ability to browse is not something that is gone forever once it goes the first time. The pc might boot up fine and lose the ability to browse and 3 hours later everything will pop back in. I would have attributed the problem to a bad NIC or maybe even a NIC model conflict on the network but we have a variety of cards running on different machines to include 3Com, Asante, Intel, and some generic card I don't recall the name of.

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    Maybe thats my answer? Perhaps I should migrate to one brand and model of NIC? Any thoughts on that everyone?

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    Do the systems that lose the browsing show anything in Net Neighborhood? Can you see some systems, but not others? Is the setup part of a Domain or are you on a Workgroup?

    I'm running out of ideas, but I saw a similar issue just this morning. 30 PCs running Win2K could all see each other on their own workgroup, but we could not access a system that was setup on a domain. We could access the shares through the UNC but could not browse. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how it was fixed. *thinking I just waived my hands over it and said abara cadabara* Anyway, the problem fixed itself somehow.
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    One word that I haven't seen posted above here---WINS----don't know if you have it running but you certainly should.
    "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" -Benjamin Franklin

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    Wins is running. Strange thing is, now that I think back, this problem starting popping up about the same time we started using Wins. I don't see that wins would cause it but then again..... I have had my moments.

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    All of the clients are configured to look for the correct WINS server address. The router is passing port 137 rather than blocking it?

    Have a look at http://www.neohapsis.com/resources/wins.htm for info on WINS.

    As the article suggests, some performance monitoring may halp resolve / locate the problem.
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    If WINS is enabled, you might try disabling it. WINS is not necessary for the systems to show when browsing the network. It would eliminate one more point of failure.
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    Question Diety.
    Should WINS be disabled on the server as well as the workstations or will disabling the workstations suffice?

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    Workstations alone should be enough. If they aren't looking for the service, then it shouldn't matter if the service is available.
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    Look man no offense to anyone here but you definitely want WINS running, with 50-60 workstations you're going to end up with a massive broadcast storm when they all start broadcasting to find out where things are.

    Make sure that your server is the Master Browser.
    "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" -Benjamin Franklin

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    I would agree with iamtheman on the WINS service. You should have it running with that many systems. I wasonly saying that while testing the stations that could not browse the network, disable the WINS service on just those machines. If name resolution is an issue, then setup an lmhosts file or something. But I would, for testing purposes, and only temporarily, disable the WINS service on only the workstations that are affected.
    A bored admin is a very dangerous person...

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