home networking woes

[bluestrobe]

I have a network with 8 computers in my house running behind a router. All computers have file sharing enabled and they are on the same workgroup. The problem which is becoming more apparent is computers are coming on and dropping off the network when you look in the workgroups window. I have a file server setup on the network that randomly appears and then disappears.

Connectivity is not a problem as I can hit it at any moment with VNC or the ping command. I know windows has issues such as this but is there any way around it? This is becoming an issue since I am using my file server more and more and having a network that doesn't allow me to share via OS is worthless in my opinion. I?m usually good with basic networking but never understood why windows has network sharing issues.

 

[r6ashih]

have you tried installing netbeui?

 

[RebateMonger]

You could check the System Event logs on a couple of the PCs and see if there's anything unusual.

Certainly, using NetBIOS for name resolution is a bit painful at times. If you can scrounge up a Windows Server and make it a WINS server, you'll get instant name resolution.

Also, consider a LMHOSTS file on each PC. You'll need to use static IP addresses on all the PCs. Make a list of Computer Names and IP addresses and copy it to the appropriate folder on all of the PCs. Then, access PC shares using UNC commands (i.e. \\mycompter).

 

[bluestrobe]

They still use netbeui these days. Haven't seen that since Windows 98SE. I can't find it as an installable item in network properties. The event viewer shows plenty of errors but nothing to do with networking.

The network places shows the workgroup but no computer within it including my current computer. This is the same with all systems on the network. Anymore ideas?

 

[boomerang]

netbeui