SOLVED: Dad's XP laptop can't see hosts on home network

[Markbnj]

SOLVED: see last post.

Hey guys, trying to help my Dad fix an issue with connectivity on his home network. It's a simple setup of two machines and a networked printer behind a Linksys firewall. The issue is with his laptop, which connects wirelessly. The other computer, a desktop, also connects wirelessly and has no issues. Both are running XP/SP2.

He can:

Resolve internet addresses and browse websites.
Ping the router by IP.
Ping the other computer by IP.
Ping the printer by IP.
Connect to a shared folder on the other computer by UNC: \\IP\Folder.

He can't:

Ping any host on his network by name.
Map to a shared folder on the other computer by UNC: \\HostName\Folder.
Connect to the printer by name.
Do net view hostname (results in system error 53, network path not found).

Things we have tried:

- Turned off Windows firewall (just to get it off the list)
- Verified workgroup name on both systems.
- Verfied stack components: client, AGN filter (Avast, I think), sharing, QoS, TCP/IP.
- Verfied Windows Locator as the lookup service.
- Forced NETBIOS over TCP/IP to Enabled (was set to Default to get settings from router).
- Turned off Simple File Sharing.
- Removed laptop from workgroup and re-added.

Ultimate conclusion:

- WTF?

Anyone have any other ideas for things I can look at here? The setup was working fine until he replaced his wireless router last week. Or I should say: he could print. It was printer connectivity that got me looking at this, so I can't say for sure that he could resolve host names before this problem popped up. I could attempt a solution by binding the printer to a static IP and connecting through that, but I would rather fix this underlying issue first. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[spidey07]

You have a problem with bindings and netbios name resolution. Post "net config workstation" and "net config system" as well as "ipconfig/all" on EVERYSINGLE machine on the network.

MS browsing is inherently fubarred. I'm not kidding when I say rebooting machines makes it worse and it can take up to 4 hours for netbios/TCP name resolution to work.

As an aside, for home networks you really should use \\IP\share to not have this problem again.

 

[Markbnj]

I'll do that tomorrow, Spidey, and post the results. Sharing via IP is a fine solution, except that all his systems are getting dynamic IPs. Yes, I can set them all up to use static, but there is really no reason for this not to be working. It's been working on my network with mostly dynamic addressing for years, and I have six machines + the router and a networked printer. So before I reconfigure I would still like to figure out wtf is going on.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

quick fix would be to add the hostname/ip in LMHOSTS

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, I'm trying to avoid an IP binding because he's using dynamic addressing right now. It really doesn't matter, except that I think this should work, and static binding is more fragile. My Dlink router, for example, will occasionally drop static bindings, and I don't want to be talking him through that on the phone every three months. Still searching for something else I can check to try and get Windows NETBIOS host resolution working.

 

[zetsway]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Yeah, I'm trying to avoid an IP binding because he's using dynamic addressing right now. It really doesn't matter, except that I think this should work, and static binding is more fragile. My Dlink router, for example, will occasionally drop static bindings, and I don't want to be talking him through that on the phone every three months. Still searching for something else I can check to try and get Windows NETBIOS host resolution working.

I have the same problem and can't figure out how to fix it. If I come up with anything I let you know. I will try and figure this out today.

 

[Markbnj]

Solved. Was looking through his network stack again and realized that the 'AGN Filter' interface that I had thought was Avast, was actually a firewall installed by his AT&T Global networking client (which he uses for email). Disabled that through the AT&T software and boom, he was able to see NETBIOS names on the network again.

So, anyway, thanks for all the help. I don't know if you guys agree with me on this, but I definitely think more people should write firewalls and install them on my Dad's machine. I think BestBuy should write one, and install it on my Dad's machine, because it's so much fun finding them afterward! Maybe Home Depot should write one too.