Windows Gurus: I'm stumped on netBIOS issue

[stevech]

After months of use, suddenly my home LAN stopped working correctly, in this regard:

computer A and B are windows 7.
computer C is XP SP2.
laptop D is XP SP3.

The problem exists if all use ethernet or if some use WiFi.

suddenly neither A or B detect C's host name nor its shares.
But A and C can access those shares if I enter the UNC pathname for the share, such as \\computerC\sharename.

C cannot see that A and B are present in the LAN.

I can only guess that this correlated to another round of W7 updates (I authorized the updates). Computer C never gets updates; it's unattended in the garage for years now, running 24/7.

I've tried all that I know, all that can find on the 'net. Well beyond the common stuff like Workgroup names match, sharing enabled, etc. I tried changing all PCs to do netBIOS over TCP. And tried others. No router reconfig- but it's not configured to participate in netBIOS (though it can).

W7's homegroup vs. ye old smb workgroup is frustrating.

 

[thiggins]

I'm not a Windows Guru by any stretch. But sounds like a Master Browser issue.
Have you tried shutting everything down, then bringing up machines one at time and making sure they browser the network ok?

You might need to clear out the old connections in My Network Places, too.

 

[stevech]

thanks.
Yes, I've rebooted everything, PCs, routers, switches, etc.
Master Browser - I read where Microsoft's networking has forever had a design on how this works when there's no domain controller. But I don't know how to fix things that used to work!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

What are the machines using for DNS? Your routers LAN IP? Or some external DNS IP?