February 16th, 2010
12:28 pm
PC in a workgroup cannot see other PCs or be seen itself

Posted under Windows
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This problem affected a laptop running Windows XP Home on our workgroup. It could browse shares by IP address e.g. \\10.0.0.2, but could not see computers by name. Removing it from the workgroup/rerunning the network setup wizard to rejoin the workgroup and rebooting had no effect.

This fix from Microsoft solved the problem, details of the manual version of the fix are as follows:-

  1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
  2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBt\Parameters
  3. In the right pane of Registry Editor, delete the following values if they are present:
      –  NodeType
      –  DhcpNodeType
    Note If the NodeType value is present, this value will override the DhcpNodeType value. If neither subkey is present and if no WINS servers are configured for the client, the computer uses b-node mode. If at least one WINS server is configured, the computer uses h-node mode.
  4. Quit Registry Editor.
  5. Restart the computer.
  6. Try to view workgroup computers on the network again.

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