One of my wishes for Vista is better peer networking. I was thinking a lot about that after a recent family support call. As usual with these issues, a new computer was brought into the Windows peer network, and suddenly computers that had been happily cooperating couldn’t (or wouldn’t) talk to one another. I’ve run into this at various times over the years, and can’t say that there’s been a consistent cure for the problem.

In the most recent case, the cause turned out to be the most basic: a firewall hadn’t been properly configured. Most firewalls (and you know you should have one installed on each machine) don’t configure any “safe” zones outside the machine itself. We had to tell the firewall that the home network was safe and, having done so, the networking proceeded in good order. If you’ve verified that your firewall is set up properly, then one of the following sources might do the trick:

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  Why Can’t I See My Computers on the Network?

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  Troubleshooting Browsing with Microsoft Network Clients

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  Microsoft Knowledge Article Base

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  User Problem Solving

Now, it should go without saying that you should try the fixes that don’t involve going into the registry first. I’ve done a fair amount of registry hacking over the years, and I hesitate to recommend it to any but the most experienced users.

Categories: Networking, General computing, Software