Vista - Can't see computers (by name) on home network

I just installed a fresh installation of Enterprisex64 a couple days ago. As I've been building up the system I mapped a drive to another computer on my network and continued to setup the new PC.

Last night after installing a couple different DVD Burning programs (Roxio10 & Nero 8) I rebooted a couple times and noticed that my Security Center was turned off. I went into the services, turned it to Automatic and restarted the service.

Then I continued my work on building my system and realized I couldn't connect to my mapped drive, only to realize I could no longer see other computers on my network via Network Neighborhood or by \\computername.
My other computers on the network can see each other, just not this new box.

Oddly, I can still talk to the new computers though. I can ping their IP addresses, or open the computer \\ipaddress. Of course this is not the preferred way especially on a DHCP network.

Extra info:
Server-less environment
Exterprisex64 has Windows Firewall running on it
Exterprisex64 has Symantec Corporate Edition AV 10.2
Other computers can still see themselves just fine, just not Exterprisex64
All are connected to a Linksys Router
Network Discovery is turned on
Can see/access Internet without a problem

I guess what I don't understand is why did it happen all of a sudden? Any suggestions on how I can turn that back on?

Is your firewall configured for the network ?

It should be. Or at least I thought it was prior to noticing that the security center was turned off. I've tried turning off the Firewall with no difference, though perhaps I had to wait longer than I was for things to start popping up again.

Is there a way to reset the firewall so that you can try a 'clean slate'?


*in addition to an answer to that, tonight I'm thinking I may verify my NetBIOS over TCP/IP. make sure it's on, and check it's status. perhaps even re-cache using NBSTAT -r. But I am curious if I can reset the firewall back to original.
(or reset the security regardless).
Thoughts / Comments?

netsh is a great tool to manage network (use in elevated command prompt.
using netsh advfirewall allows you to to configure settings for network components.

After you are in the advfirewall context, you can type specific commands, commands include the following:

export. Exports the current firewall policy to a file.
help. Displays a list of available commands.
import. Imports a policy from the specified file.

reset. Restores Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to the default policy.

show. Shows the properties for a particular profile. For example:
show allprofiles
show domainprofile
show privateprofile
show publicprofile

Have a look to the command firewall (not advanced)
netsh firewall /?

To have the list of all commands: netsh /?

When I've had this problem I've always found Norton/Symantec to be at the root of it. Just for kicks turn off Symantec and see what that does.

I've found the root of my problem. it's this...

Failed to access NetBT driver -- NetBT may not be loaded

And for the life of me I can not get this to load.
I've been doing some searching on Google and found "Bob" who seems to have been bouncing from forum to forum spreading his knowledge, though sadly his suggestions will not work for me. This is what I've tried so far:

1. Yes I am part of the administrators group
2. Enable NETBIOS over TCP/IP

• Right click Network Neighborhood
• Select Properties
• Right click your Internet Connection (ex. Local Area Connection)
• Select Properties
• Make sure Client for Microsoft Networks, and File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks are SELECTED.
  • Highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
  • Click Properties
  • Click Advanced
  • Select the WINS Tab Above
  • Make sure Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP is SELECTED
• Click OK and Close Network Connections Window

3. Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt:
Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ip reset reset.log
Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog
Reboot the machine.

4. I also restarted all these services (that currently said Started)

• Computer Browser
• DHCP Client
• DNS Client
• Network Connections
• Network Location Awareness
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Server
• TCP/IP Netbios helper
• Workstation

5. I uninstalled Symantec Corporate Edition AV 10.2 x64 just to be sure. And that still didn't make a difference. Have since re-installed just for the protection.


I just don't know..... this is really really....REALLY bizarre

Lo and Behold.... and answer has come to pass!!!

I came across a forum, and this one guy had the same issue and showed the answer. There were a couple of posts from different searches about changing a registry settings for NetBIos over TCP/IP. But this never did anything for me. What did do the trick was this...

- Enter the registry (regedit...I ran as administrator for the heck of it)
- HKEYLocalMachines/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/NetBt/Parameters
- go to "transportbindname"
- enter the value \Device\ (use the backslashes)
- reboot

mine was actually blank to start with, and after inputing that value and rebooting....wohoo!! Now it's all coming together. I just flipped on my laptop next to me and the computer auto-popped up in my Network Neighborhood on it's own.
And not only that.... the other computers (vista, XP, Linux) can all see and talk to this computer as well (whereas previously they couldn't).

*whew* small issue in some ways, but glad to have that fixed.