Network Places - some PCs not visible

[alpder]

On a Novell network we have PCs running a mixture of NT4 and XP. As administrator when I go to Network Places, I can sometimes "see" all the networked PCs, but other times I will just see some of them. When I see only some of them, it is usually the XP computers that I cannot see.
I find this incredibly frustrating. All XP boxes have firewall disabled (we manage our whole network through a firewall to the outside world.
I would be grateful for any suggestions.

 

[bcastner]

You can prevent this in either of two ways:

. Under Services, stop and set to Disabled the Computer Browser service;

. Or type regedt32, and change the key value to False:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\IsDomainMaster=FALSE

 

[alpder]

Dear bcastner,
Thanks a lot. Your help is appreciated.

 

[bcastner]

Win2k and XP clients can cause issues, as they "rank" higher as Master Browsers than do NT or pre-Win2k clients.

Be certain, no matter what, that under the Network Connection, Properties, Internet Protocal - TCP/IP, Properties, Advanced, WINS tab, that you explicitly enable 'netbios over TCP/IP' and do not leave this at the default settings.

Best wishes,
Bill Castner