Computer name resolution problem on Vista

I was setting up shared printing on a network with one XP PC (which shared
the printer attached to it) and two Vista PCs (one Home Basic, the other
Home Premium) which are configured to access this shared printer. The router
was a Linksys WAG54G.

The Home Premium PC could access the XP PC by its hostname, both for pings
and for net view, whereas the Home Basic PC could not resolve the hostname;
I could still ping the XP PC by its IP address and do net view and define
the printer queue by IP address. The Home Basic PC had the same problem
pinging the Home Premium PC by name but could do so by IP.

The router correctly listed all the PCs by hostname in the DHCP list.

I couldn't find any difference in the TCP settings (particularly the WINS
NetBIOS settings) between the two Vista PCs. NetBIOS over TCP was set to
"Default - use NetBIOS setting from router".

Both Vista PCs' ipconfig /all were identical apart from their own IP
addresses (IPv4 and IPv6) and MAC addresses.

All three PCs had Norton Internet Security 2007, with the router's MAC
address listed as a trusted network. All PCs could ping each other (in both
directions) by IP address.

I tried rebooting all the PCs and the router, but to no avail.

Eventually I resolved the problem by giving the XP PC a static IP address
(*) and a static DNS address (that of the router), and altering the router's
scope so this address was excluded from the DHCP scope. I then put an entry
for the XP PC's name and IP in the Home Basic PC's hosts file. Problem
solved.

But I'd like to know what I should have checked to fix the problem without
resorting to static IPs.


(*) The router did not have a mechanism for forcing DHCP to allocate a
fixed IP address to the XP PC, unlike some Netgear routers, so I had to do
it by setting a static IP in that PC's TCP config.

On Wed, 10 Mar 2010 Mortimer wrote:

>Eventually I resolved the problem by giving the XP PC a static IP address
>(*) and a static DNS address (that of the router), and altering the router's
>scope so this address was excluded from the DHCP scope. I then put an entry
>for the XP PC's name and IP in the Home Basic PC's hosts file. Problem
>solved.
>
>But I'd like to know what I should have checked to fix the problem without
>resorting to static IPs.

I have the same problem. It's a nuisance. But thanks for the idea of
using static IPs

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://rance.org.uk