Another XP SP2 Issue

[John Coutts]

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I will deal with these questions one at a time, but you will get a complete
picture when I describe the network.
WorkGroup: YELREG
User1: YELREG1
User2: YELREG2
User3: YELREG3
User4: YELREGMAN
User5: YELREGJES
There is another cut down W2K machine used for imaging that does not appear to
use netbios on the network and is not accessible (government machine). All the
rest are XP Pro SP2. All machines can connect explicitly with one another;
they just can't browse. All I have to do is connect one W2K machine to the
network and all machines can browse. I maintain another all XP network and it
has no problem browsing. But they are all SP1 and this one is all SP2.
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Interesting... the plot thickens.

I found this and was playing around with it a bit:
http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm

Here are some things I found that we should look at a little more closely or
at least confirm. I apologize if these seem to rudimentary, or that you may
have already gone over them. I think we both know and agree your current
setup should just work out of the box. Agreed? So there's something
hindering the service from operating on that one machine, or all of them
(for whatever reason). Also, most of the links I've found researching this
all point to the firewall service, but since you have it disabled on all
machines, I've been discarding those hits.
1.. Check all NetBIOS names for possible duplicates. For example, if the
workgroup name coincides with a user or computer name, this could cause the
problem. Try opening a command line window and issuing the command: net view

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Net view responds with System Error 6118
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2.. Issue the command: net view \\computername, where computername should
be replaced with one of the names displayed with the simple net view
command. Check all names for possible duplication.

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No problem. Shows resources on other machine.
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3.. Disable, better yet uninstall or upgrade, all antivirus software and
third party firewalls. Check to see if they perform network montoring.

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No firewall. AVG antivirus with no network monitoring.
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4.. Rid the computer of adware and spyware.

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None present. Relatively new setups.
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5.. Repair the Winsock with the command: netsh winsock reset (This removes
all third party Layered Service Providers-LSPs.

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Done
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6.. Computers running older operating systems than Windows XP may disturb
the computer browser system. If there are any devices on the network that is
capable of interfering, let's stop them as well.

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All XP Pro SP2, except one as noted above.
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7.. Make sure that the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service is running and has
the proper start type.

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Service enabled on Manual startup.
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8.. Make sure MS Client & File and Print Sharing is enabled.

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Enabled
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9.. Uninstall third party client software that can interfere with the
networking settings. Such software could have come with network adapters or
with a router.

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None present.
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10.. Force it to use NetBIOS over TCP/IP under NIC properties, IP
Properties, Advanced, WINS tab.

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Done. Was on default using fixed IP address.
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11.. I remember mentioning browcon.exe, but you didn't post any results or
if you have tried it, and assume you have already done so without the
desired results.

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I did not try Browcon because the article said that it was only applicable to
Server 2003. This network is all XP.
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12.. Let's also take a look at browstat. It will show you if browsing is
enabled on the network and who the master browser is. You can download
Browstat from http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/browstat.zip
or http://rescomp.stanford.edu/staff/manual/rcc/tools/browstat.zip. Here is
a link from Microsoft on it's use: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=188305

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Browstat status returns:
Browsing not active on domain.
Master Browser cannot be determined for GetAdapterStatus
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Here's another interesting thing I found as well:

*Begin procedure:
===================================
You have both the following symptoms:
a.. You can ping the computer by IP and by name.

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Yes
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b.. When you type on another computer, replacing computername with the
name of the inaccessible computer:
net view \\computername
you get one of the various "Error 5" error messages, like "System error 5
has occurred. Access is denied" or "Error 5: You do not currently have
access to this file. ..."

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Shows resources available on that particular machine. No errors.
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This is in some cases caused by a registry setting named RestrictAnonymous.
Go to the computer which you cannot access, start a registry editor and
change the following registry value.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Control
\Lsa
Value name: RestrictAnonymous
Value type: DWORD

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DWORD value is 0
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If the value is 1 or even 2, change it to 0, reboot and retest. If the
problem is solved, leave the value at zero. If not, you can change it back
if you like.

*End of procedure.

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Another interesting one:

*Begin procedure:

===================================

Another related and surprisingly frequent problem beside disabled NetBIOS
over TCP/IP is the setting of an unsuitable node type for Windows networks
(which use NetBIOS). If you don't see other computers in Network
Neighborhood or My Network Places, then this computer may have the wrong
node type. If you get error messages when you try to access another
computer, then you may have to walk over to that other computer and perform
the following steps there.

First check the node type by opening a command line window and typing the
command

ipconfig /all

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Node Type is hybrid.
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This command reports the node type, among other information. It should be
Hybrid or Unknown, but not Point-to-Point (p-node, actually a mistaken
interpretation of Peer-to-Peer), because that would work only when a WINS
server is present.

If the node type is P-t-P, you can use regedit.exe to go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\System
\CurrentControlSet
\Services
\Netbt
\Parameters

and delete any of the two values NodeType and DhcpNodeType if they exist,
forcing Windows to fall back to its default node type, which should be
Hybrid. Reboot.

More details can be found in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base
article.

Default Node Type for Microsoft Clients
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=160177

*End procedure

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Well, that's about it for right now. Other than this, I'm not sure what is
going on. Like I said, it should just work out-of-the-box.

Let me know what you find with the above information.

Thanks

Ace

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Thanks for all the suggestions, but this still appears to be strictly an SP2
issue from where I sit.
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[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In John Coutts <[email protected]> made a post then I commented
below

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Thanks for all the suggestions, but this still appears to be strictly
an SP2 issue from where I sit.
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No problem, John. I tried. I am spilled my beans on everything I can think
of with the browser service that has always helped me in the past. I don't
know what I've missed, if anything at all. I'm lost with this one.

However, the one thing that bothers me is the firewall on SP2. Could
possibly an issue with SP2 even though it says it's disabled, is still
filtering certain types of traffic, including browing traffic? How about one
more stab at it? Let's enable ICF on one of the machines, and allow File &
Print traffic in the exception rule, just to see if it work? If that works,
then it all points to something up (or not obviously sticking out and saying
so) with the firewall service on the machine.

Hmm, that just made me think of something else... is the firewall service
started even though it's disable? I noticed on my laptop, even though ICF is
not on, the service is running. If this is the case, let's try disabling
that and see if it helps.

If this keeps up I will send this to my MVP lead to pass it on to the dev
team and see what they may have to say about it, unless one of the engineers
from MS reads this thread and may give us a little help.

Otherwise, keep the non-XP machine up for it's browser service (just
kidding)!!

Ace

 

[John Coutts]

In John Coutts <[email protected]> made a post then I commented
below



No problem, John. I tried. I am spilled my beans on everything I can think
of with the browser service that has always helped me in the past. I don't
know what I've missed, if anything at all. I'm lost with this one.

However, the one thing that bothers me is the firewall on SP2. Could
possibly an issue with SP2 even though it says it's disabled, is still
filtering certain types of traffic, including browing traffic? How about one
more stab at it? Let's enable ICF on one of the machines, and allow File &
Print traffic in the exception rule, just to see if it work? If that works,
then it all points to something up (or not obviously sticking out and saying
so) with the firewall service on the machine.

Hmm, that just made me think of something else... is the firewall service
started even though it's disable? I noticed on my laptop, even though ICF is
not on, the service is running. If this is the case, let's try disabling
that and see if it helps.

If this keeps up I will send this to my MVP lead to pass it on to the dev
team and see what they may have to say about it, unless one of the engineers
from MS reads this thread and may give us a little help.

Otherwise, keep the non-XP machine up for it's browser service (just
kidding)!!

******************* REPLY SEPARATER *******************
I'm not. I have already advised my clients not to upgrade all their machines to
SP2.
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[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In John Coutts <[email protected]> made a post then I commented
below

******************* REPLY SEPARATER *******************
I'm not. I have already advised my clients not to upgrade all their
machines to SP2.
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Good luck. If I find or think of anything, I'll post back.

 

[John Coutts]

In John Coutts <[email protected]> made a post then I commented
below


Good luck. If I find or think of anything, I'll post back.

************** REPLY SEPARATER ***************
Thanks again Ace for all your efforts. I have to tell you that this particular
customer is very disenchanted with XP. She has had numerous problems (some of
which are still ongoing) ever since the government encouraged her to move from
W2K to XP. Her nickname for XP is eXtra Poopy, and for SP2 is Shit Pack 2.

One of the problems that continues to plague her is a printer hangup problem.
Every once in a while, a print job that is being routed from the goverment Main
Frame (via AR3270) gets stuck somewhere in the system. Every subsequent print
job routed from the Main Frame to that particular machine reprints the same
information. I personally don't have any experience with type of routing, so I
don't know how it passed to the print spooler. If you have any ideas, maybe you
could start another thread. The government support people have been working on
this one for a couple of months now, and are still no closer to an answer.
Their only solution so far is to completely uninstall and reinstall their
software.

J.A. Coutts