Accessing a networkshare over WAN broke after turning off NetBIOS

I am investigation the impact of turning off NetBIOS on our corporate WAN. I
have a test machine (XP Pro) on which I have disabled NetBIOS. I am trying
to connect to that test computer from another computer at the other end of
our WAN, but it fails to connect. If I turn NetBIOS back on, then it can
connect.

This doesn't make sense to me since from everything I read, the client
machine should simply use SMB on port 445 when NetBIOS is not available.
When I do a packet capture, I noticed that for some odd reason the client
tries to talk to the computer with the share over port 80, which is promptly
denied by the computer with the share.

13 21.146792 10.x.y.z 10.a.b.c TCP timbuktu-srv2 > http [SYN] Seq=0
Win=65535 Len=0 MSS=1460
14 21.230402 10.a.b.c 10.x.y.z TCP http > timbuktu-srv2 [RST, ACK] Seq=1
Ack=1 Win=0 Len=0
15 21.644501 10.x.y.z 10.a.b.c TCP timbuktu-srv2 > http [SYN] Seq=0
Win=65535 Len=0 MSS=1460
16 21.728115 10.a.b.c 10.x.y.z TCP http > timbuktu-srv2 [RST, ACK] Seq=1
Ack=1 Win=0 Len=0

I could not find much to explain why the client attempts to establish
connection to the share over port 80 as opposed to port 445. So far, I used
the following resource:

- How to configure TCP/IP Networking While NetBIOS Is Turned Off on a Server
Running Windows Server 2003 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q323357
- You experience a delay when you use Windows XP computer to log on to a
domain or to connect to a network resource -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q832161

I'm not sure what to do next here, I pretty much ran out of ideas. Anyone
has any idea?

Thanks,

Francois

Francois,
If you are trying to connect to a remote computer using Netbios over a WAN
then you will need WINS. If you use FQDN then it won't matter if you have
the Browser service off.
Anthony,
http://www.airdesk.com

"Francois" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:B5FA8B3F-4281-42C1-8141-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I am investigation the impact of turning off NetBIOS on our corporate WAN.
> I
> have a test machine (XP Pro) on which I have disabled NetBIOS. I am
> trying
> to connect to that test computer from another computer at the other end of
> our WAN, but it fails to connect. If I turn NetBIOS back on, then it can
> connect.
>
> This doesn't make sense to me since from everything I read, the client
> machine should simply use SMB on port 445 when NetBIOS is not available.
> When I do a packet capture, I noticed that for some odd reason the client
> tries to talk to the computer with the share over port 80, which is
> promptly
> denied by the computer with the share.
>
> 13 21.146792 10.x.y.z 10.a.b.c TCP timbuktu-srv2 > http [SYN] Seq=0
> Win=65535 Len=0 MSS=1460
> 14 21.230402 10.a.b.c 10.x.y.z TCP http > timbuktu-srv2 [RST, ACK]
> Seq=1
> Ack=1 Win=0 Len=0
> 15 21.644501 10.x.y.z 10.a.b.c TCP timbuktu-srv2 > http [SYN] Seq=0
> Win=65535 Len=0 MSS=1460
> 16 21.728115 10.a.b.c 10.x.y.z TCP http > timbuktu-srv2 [RST, ACK]
> Seq=1
> Ack=1 Win=0 Len=0
>
> I could not find much to explain why the client attempts to establish
> connection to the share over port 80 as opposed to port 445. So far, I
> used
> the following resource:
>
> - How to configure TCP/IP Networking While NetBIOS Is Turned Off on a
> Server
> Running Windows Server 2003 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q323357
> - You experience a delay when you use Windows XP computer to log on to a
> domain or to connect to a network resource -
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q832161
>
> I'm not sure what to do next here, I pretty much ran out of ideas. Anyone
> has any idea?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Francois