Home Network: NetBIOS name resolution not working for 1 computer

[bobcpg]

I have 3 computers on my home network. One of them, lets call it computer A, can not access a share on the other "server" computer via the server's name but CAN access the shares by the server's IP address. Also, the server can not access a share on computer A by its name but CAN buy its IP address. From the 3rd computer, computer B, I can access shares on the server by name but not on computer A via the computer name.

All computers running XP. There was a McAfee AntiVirus/Firewall software package installed on computer A but I have since uninstalled it and still does not work. I have already spent 5 hours on this reinsatlling network drivers, ensuring NetBIOS Auto detect is on in the TCP/IP properties, doing some registry hacks via google searches (I have since reverted all registry hacks). Everything seems to be at default level but computer A can not resolve to/from NetBIOS names.

Any ideas on how to get Computer A to resolve NetBIOS names?

 

[imagoon]

NetBIOS is a pure peer to peer tech. The other machines will broadcast advertisements that they exist and the other computers should listen for them. Also the machine looking for the name needs to be able to broadcast out and listen for a reply. So number one would be to make sure all firewalls (including XP's) are off for testing.

Make sure NetBIOS is on in the TCP/IP configs. (In the WINS tab)
Make sure "Client for Microsoft Networks" is installed and enabled for that network card.

What does "nbtstat -c" say?
Does netstat -an show port 445 open and used by NBT?

 

[bobcpg]

Thanks for the ideas. I am not currently by the setup but I will be soon. I will post the details when I get them.

 

[Nothinman]

Windows network browsing is a form of black magic and is (one reason) why ad-hoc Windows networks suck. Having proper DNS setup will resolve many of these kind of issues. Although sadly I don't think there's any simple way to put a DNS server on an XP machine or SOHO router.

 

[Emulex]

bind runs on many devices small and large. router isn't a bad place to put a few static dns entries.

 

[Nothinman]

bind runs on many devices small and large. router isn't a bad place to put a few static dns entries.

Yes, but setting up bind isn't exactly simple for someone who doesn't know how DNS works.

 

[spidey07]

There are a ton of things that can cause this and it's very common. just one little misconfiguration on a single machine can cause the whole network to have name resolution problems that are difficult to troubleshoot and counter intuative. Rebooting machines is the worst thing you can do and makes it worse, it can take over an hour for the change of rebooting to fully take affect and that counter is reset when it comes back up.

Need output of "net config server" and "net config workstation" on every single machine that is attached, even if it's not on.