it is definitately weird. the xp box has no firewall on at all, and when i turn off the 2k8 firewall i still don't see it in "network discovery", all i see in there is itself (the 2k8 machine, unless i have a win7 test machine on - it shows up too all w/ firewalls). i guess what gets me is that when i type in a unc i can go to the xp machine i want to go to and map a drive, but it still won't show up in the "network explorer"
normally this would be ok, along w/ mapping which i can do from the 2k8 machine to the xp machine even w/ the firewall on, but this one software needs to put a backup on another workstation and it has to go through "network" in the little explorer box that pops up when listing where to put backups, so no go. what is also weird is that if i use a unc like \\machine1\backup as the unc for this software, the backup portion will not see the share, but if i do machine1\backup it will see how much free space is available but still won't work either way. i am not sure what is more jacked up, the software or 2k8

imho the software that needs this is a bit lagging in the 2k8 dept w/ their backup requirements and they need to update it since it is i believe high 4 to 5 figure software. sorry if i am just bitching, but man, this has been a real pita, all what was suppose to be the hard parts were done rather easily and i have been cruising right along, and this, what should be done very easily and take 5-10min max is taking days and still not working.
another day tomorrow of trying to get this figured out.
if you guys can think of anything even remotely weird but possible, lmk and i will give it a try. i have a good image of it before any messing was done so if something gets messed up, no biggie, just 15mins to put the image back on.