On 17 Oct 2003 at 22:27, Toomas Piibe wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ian" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> > Toomas, the articles you refer to seem to be directed at NetBIOS problems
> > on Win2k setups.  As far as I know, my home network cummicates via TCP\IP
> > and it's running on XP Pro machines.
> >
>
> It is not NetBIOS but (netbios) name resolving service. Names what You see in
> Network Neighborhood are NetBIOS names and there must be computer what
> maps them to IP addresses. You probably could connect using IP address or
> adding name to lmhosts file.

  Ian's comment appears to reflect the common confusion of NetBIOS with
NetBEUI.  NetBIOS services can be provided over NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, or (most
commonly these days) TCP/IP.
  Toomas, you are correct that the names listed in Network Neighborhood are
NetBIOS names, and they will rely on NetBIOS name resolution to translate
them to network addresses of the appropriate sort.  Resolution, however,
doesn't take place until you select a named system and attempt to
communicate with it.  I've seen problems where machine A's TCP/IP config is
broken, but it has IPX/SPX loaded, and machine B has only TCP/IP running;
they see each other in the list, but neither can resolve the other's name to
an address it can communicate with.

> About  David Gillet replay. Large systems are Primary Domain Controller
> and Backup Domain Controller(s) what automatically come to Master Browser.
> So there is much less problems as in LAN with P2P networking  based same OS.
> Newer OSes has given preference so if here is only one WinXP it comes to
> Master Brower.

  All of the machines on a network that are running the Computer Browser
service talk to each other to elect a "Master Browser" and a handful of
"backup browsers".  If more machines than necessary are running the service,
the rest won't do anything, except waste time and effort participating in
such elections.
  There's a hierarchy that determines who will win the election.  Servers
take priority over workstations and NT/2K/XP over 95/98/ME.  In a domain
configuration, domain controllers take priority over ordinary servers.
  In a large network, there are probably enough servers to ensure that no
workstation can ever get elected.  So running the service on each
workstation really is a complete waste of time.
  On a network of only 3-4 machines, you might not have any servers, and so
one of the workstations *that is running the Computer Browser service* is
going to be the master browser.  If nobody's running the service, browsing
(Network Neighborhood) doesn't work.

David Gillett

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