Windows 7, workgroup, lost network neighborhood... what should I do?

[speedmaster]

Crazy, I've thought I was free from net neighborhood issues with Windows 7 but just yesterday it strikes back.

I have a client with 6 computers connected in a network composed of 5 W7 64 bit and one W Vista 32 bit and everything was working great... so last Friday I took the last Vista computer and installed W7 64 bit in order to have an homogeneous network with all clients using W7 64. Yesterday morning I've installed the client back in the workgroup and fired it up so that I would have all ready for the beginning of work and...voila... my net neighborhood is showing blank in all the computers (before I removed the vista machine nn was showing all computers). No matter what I do they do not show up anymore although I can connect to any of the resources using the \\server\share way.

It seems to me that the Vista machine was the master browser and somehow, after the upgrade, the workgroup is not being able to elect or bring up other master browser.

What can I do to force a new master browser or to bring back the computers to show at net neighborhood?

Cheers all and thanks.

Speed

 

[speedmaster]

nobody?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Manually set a new PC as your master browser. Select a PC that's on the most.

Could also be a DNS change, some routers will act as a local DNS server for your network, others simply had the IPs of the 2x DNS servers they obtain from your ISP..usually your ISPs servers. In these cases (where your PCs use your ISPs DNS servers)...the master browser of your peer to peer LAN is more important. In cases where the router does DNS forwarding, it hands out its LAN IP as the DNS servers for the network..and many will hold DNS tables for your nodes, they'll resolve names.

So...if you run an IPCONFIG from a workstation...see if your routers LAN IP is the DNS server. If not, you LAN has to rely on the master browser more. And you can manually change this via the registry of the PC you select. Normally if a master browser leaves the network...like possibly in your case when you yanked the Vista machine, the network will auto select a new master browser. But ah...such is the case, things don't always work like they should.

Not Master Browser
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\ISDomainMaster = False
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList = Auto

Is Master Browser
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\ISDomainMaster = True
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList = Yes