troubleshooting mapped drives in a peer to peer xp network

[Guest]

Hello,

I am attempting to troubleshoot network issues on a large peer to peer
network with approximately 40 XP Pro sp2 workstations.

I do not understand the browsing service or Master browser concepts. I
wonder if we may be having issues because xp can only have 10 concurrent
network connections. I would like to definitively sort out these network
issues: Mapped network NAS device suddenly becomes inaccesseble.

Can you refer me to a resource that explains the browser concept for xp in a
peer to peer network? Also, once I understand how the browser service works,
perhaps I you can suggest some methodolgies and tools for diagnosing,
troubleshooting and configuring this (netbios?) browsing functionality.

I was just able to successfully ping the nas device that has lost its mapped
connection that we normally access via the network drive icon in My Computer.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Steven L Umbach]

XP can only have ten concurrent connections via its server [file and print
sharing] service and you can view sessions with the command net session or
via Computer Management/Shared Folders - sessions.

If you suspect that NBT is the issue try connecting to the share specifying
the current IP address of the remote server as in
\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\sharename to see if you can connect that way. Rather than
using My Network Places to access shares I find it better to use mapped
drives and when doing so I like to use the IP of the remote server assuming
that it is static and not going to change though using the name should work
fine on properly functioning network. Firewalls like the Windows Firewall
can also cause access problems to network shares if the file and print
sharing exception is not enabled.

A network that large would ideally have at least one server for network
shares and also a domain controller to centralize user/computer accounts,
user/computer authentication, and computer/user/security policy which could
then be centralized to be uniform. Though there would be an initial expense
at first in my opinion such servers would save quite a bit of money in the
long run. Also a file server would make centralized backups a snap to help
protect data.

The links below will help you understand/troubleshoot the browser service as
will tools such as browstat and nbtstat and ping is always a friend to use
with both computer name and IP to see if access can be established. On a
peer to peer network that large there is going to be a lot of browser
elections particularly if computers are not on all the time. A computer can
be given an edge to be the browser master via a registry edit or a server
would keep the role in such a network and enabling wins on it would also be
very helpful. Disabling the browser service on a computer will also prevent
it from becoming a browser master or backup browser master. Also make sure
the network is using switches and not hubs to help with performance as I
still see too many networks running old hubs.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188305
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188001
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/cnet/cnfi_brs_oynw.mspx?mfr=true