Windows cannot discover any computer or device

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Guest

I am running Vista Enterprise (final version) in a domain environment I have
turned on the Link-Layer Topology Discovery in local gp and domain gpo but I
still get the error "Windows cannot discover any computer or device" I can
browse in explorer to every machine on the network but it seems to want to
communciate with microsoft.com.

I also do not get a full connection to the internet in Network and Sharing
Center. I can see my domain and I can connect to the internet and other PC's
but when I try to repair the connection from domain to internet I get a
"Windows cannot communicate with www.microsoft.com (207.46.19.30) the ping
was successful but there was no response. I know this is because we are
behind a Firewall but surely MS has thought of this and has a way around this?
 
Hmm, puzzling! I don't have an exact answer, but perhaps there's something
here that might give you some clues.

Not sure about the "cannot discover any computers" or "do not get a full
connection to the internet in Network and Sharing", but none of (well, none
that I know of!) the Microsoft servers respond to "ping" requests, so the
lack of response to ping from www.microsoft.com doesn't necessarily tell you
anything.

Try another destination for ping, such as yahoo.com or google.com.

I turned on both those settings on my small domain at home (single LAN) for
my Vista workstations and the "Network map" now displays and shows all of
the Vista computers (before turning on these settings, I got the message
that the network map was suppressed by default in the domain). The actual
"map" only shows "Vista -> Gateway -> Internet", but the other computers
(including the Windows Server 2003 R2 Domain Controller) are listed at the
bottom as "The following discovered device(s) can not be placed in the
map.".

Have you verified that the GPO containing the settings is in fact applied to
the Vista computer(s) using the gpresult command or the Group Policy Results
wizard? I assume you have a check mark in the "Allow operation while in
domain" check box for both settings.

Also, check that the Network Discovery exception is enabled in the Windows
Firewall configuration is Enabled.

What do you mean by "do not get a full connection to the internet in Network
and Sharing"? The only time I've seen that sort of thing (e.g. limited
network connectivity) is when the computer could not get an IP address from
DHCP, but then I would expect you wouldn't have domain connectivity either.

My router has a built in firewall and does NAT as well, so perhaps the issue
is not related to the "firewall".
--
Bruce Sanderson MVP Printing
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders

It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
 
Sorry, I'm not familiar with "proxy" servers etc. Here's something to try,
if you haven't already, in IE, click Tools, Internet Options, select the
Connections tab, click LAN settings. There's a spot there for configuring a
"proxy server".

If you are in a Windows Domain, presumably the DNS server (often on the same
server as the Domain Controller role) is doing the nslookups for you, so you
don't need "Internet connectivity" from the Vista workstation itself to do
that.

I'm going to be out of town and most likely newsgroup incomunicado for about
10 days.
--
Bruce Sanderson MVP Printing
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders

It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
 
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