Notebook w/ Windows XP Media Edition can not browse workgroup

Question

Got a Dell notebook w/ Media Center.  It can get on the internet.  I can network a workgroup but when I try to browse that workgroup it can see the group but no pc's in that group.  I've had the same results in my shop as at user's house.  This is not the Media Center - domain issue.  It is a workgroup.    I can ping the other PC's by IP.   I've installed Netbeui and verified settings in file and sharing as well as in file manager.

volcano11 · Answer

Have you tried completely disabling the firewall software (McAfee or Norton) that comes with most new Dell computers? Sometimes the firewall gets misconfigured and sometimes the only remedy is to completely unisnstall the software until the problem is resolved.

Steve

fcofg · Answer

Everything disabled.  Some additional information:   All pc's are in the same range, workgroup name, etc.  My shop is a simple set up.  No domain.  One workgroup w/ all pc's joining through one router.  No firewall.  No MAC filtering.  Nothing tricky.   The router has a static IP with Verizon but assisns the usual 192.168.0.100 - 1xx. Addresses.  No other DHCP server.  DNS available through Verizon's servers.   One winkle developed this morning, though.  Now it can not even ping any other pc in the workgroup.  It will ping the gateway and dns servers.  Will work on the internet fine still.  Just will not see local pc's.

volcano11 · Answer

Did you try completely uninstalling the security suite?  As I said before, simply disabling it sometimes does not work. Steve

fcofg · Answer

One additional piece of information.  One of my techs says he knows of another Inspiron laptop with identical problem.  So maybe it is a larger Inspiron problem or maybe a problem with how they ware initially loaded.  Both of these Inspirons were bought about the same time.

fcofg · Answer

I was resisting actually removing NIS from the laptop since the customer had paid for it.  But having finally done that it made no difference.  Removed it, restarted the PC, re-ran the network wizard, rebooted.  After also turning off the MS firewall, it was finally able to browse and see the other available pc's.  However, I turned the MS firewall back on and it would no longer work.  Turned the firewall back off and it no longer sees the pc's. This appears to be some fundamental bug in the network installation that prevents the browser from functioning correctly.  Something set in the initial load. I think it will only be corrected with a reinstall unless there's a way to fix browser issues on XP Media Center.

volcano11 · Answer

If the Windows firewall is enabled, you need to make sure that File and Printer Sharing is set as an exception on the exceptions tab of the Windows firewall. This is necessary to ensure that the XP firewall doesn't also block local network access. Also, one should not be running both the Windows firewall and the Norton firewall at the same time, as this may cause all kinds of conflicts.

Steve

Message Edited by volcano11 on 02-17-2006 02:55 PM

fcofg · Answer

Thanks for the suggestions.  I got the rebuild disks and reloaded the notebook.  Connected to the workgroup immediately.  Something then wrong with the original image.   Tried everything here without success.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Notebook w/ Windows XP Media Edition can not browse workgroup

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