Windows 2000 does not connect to workgroup

I am doing software testing at home for a project that is rewriting Winsdows web software to run on Linux servers. I have a home network of a NetGear Wireless ADSL/Router/4 port Switch and cascaded from that a Linksys Print server/4 port switch.

Attached to that are 3 test machines, 2 Linux and 1 Win2000 Server, my home Desktop Windows XP Pro and a Linksys NSLU2 NAS file server. I also have an XP Home portable which attaches to the Wireless network.

All of the Windows machines were members of a workgroup, and could see each other and the NAS server shares. They all had 2 shares on the NAS server mapped as network devices in Windows Explorer with reconnection at logon.

I had a call at the weekend from a friend whose portable was giving hardware errors (Delayed write failures) and could I look at it for him. He brought it to me and I plugged it into the network. It is running Win2000 Pro and was set up as a member of my workgroup.

I decided to back up his hard disk to the NAS drive and although My Network places could see the server it could not see any shares on it in the browser. If I entered the correct \\server\share it said that it could not contact the computer, The network Path was not found. The portable has Internet access though.

I tried various things including uninstalling the network card and its drivers but to no avail. I swapped the portable to the Workgroup WORKGROUP. I swapped it back and was welcomed to my workgroup but still could not access any other machine. I tried the Network Identification Wizard and that made no difference.

I then had to reboot the Win2000 server and now that will not connect to the NAS shares. It gets an Event ID 8021: "The browser was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\NASSERVER on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_... ".

Apart from the Event Log entry it behaves in the same way as the portable now. I have restored the server from an image file and the same thing applies.

I have not had any problems with the pc's running XP. How can I stop Win 2000 machines from treating the NAS server as the master browser? It is actually running Linux so will not respond properly ever. I assume that my running the Network Id wizard did this. I am not certtain that the XP boxes are not affected so I am hibernating them.

Can I get the Portable to connect to my network. I have a new hard disk coming later and would like to write an image of his system onto the network to transfer to the new HDD.

I hope that someone can help me.

Nev

 

If your Linux machine is running Samba, then edit /etc/smb.conf and set

Code:

domain master = No
      local master = No
      preferred master = No

That should take care of one issue.

Assuming your 2K server is running 7x24, set Computer Browser to autostart and disable it on all the other PCs. You can set one other machine with Browser Service enabled if you need a backup but use a 2K workstation.

To make absolutely sure the 2K server is seen as the workgroups's master browser (it should be but M$ has some problems in this area) check the registry and make sure that IsDomainMaster is set to TRUE. Note that this applies to domains and I think it also does to workgroups. I haven't messed around with workgroups for a long time and honestly just don't remember for sure.


The machine that can't connect to a network share - is it using a logon name and non-blank password? If it is and the machine(s) hosting the share(s) have the guest account enabled, you should be good to go assuming that Client for Microsoft Networks and File & Printer Sharing are loaded on the PC.

 

The W2K server is working again

Newt,

Thanks for the very prompt reply. It was 4am by the time I had finished writing about my woes so I turned all of the windows boxes and went to bed. Today I started up the XP machines and turned on the W2K server. It reconnected to the network drive no problem!

The only thing that I remember trying after my post was a

NET STOP BROWSER

command. It seemed to have no effect, but the note about it I saw said wait at least 10 minutes before checking so perhaps I was too impatient.

I checked the IsDomainMaster setting and it is false as I would expect.

Regarding the NAS server that is a black box with external hard drives. It has a browser front end so making the changes you suggest is not straight forward. There is an article about programming the box on Toms Hardware Guide however, so I will try to follow that and make the changes. My Linux knowledge was not sufficient when I looked at the article originally but needs must, so I will try to follow them and make your changes.

The server boxes are all test web/app server machines that get rebooted very regularly. The 2 Linux servers are left on 24/7 so that others can see them, but I turn the W2K box off occasionally. The NAS server is the only thing that stays on all of the time. I have left my friends portable switched off today as I must get on with teasing. I will go back to trying to back it up later.

 

The W2K Server problem has returned

I wanted to copy some files off of the server so I installed CD-Now so I could write a CD. This caused a reboot and the problem has returned. I got Event ID 8021 again and I could not access the network shares.

I did not know what I had done to clear the problem. I suspect that things are OK if the machine does not browse, so I have tried the "net stop browser" command again waited and rebooted. It has connected to the network again. What is going on? Does Net Stop Browser stop the Computer Browser Service? I think that I will disable that, Black Viper recommends that.

I am mystified as to why the NAS server has become the Master Browser. I wonder if I should reset the box and clear its memory? I think that adding your change is the way to go though.

The replacement HDD for my friends portable has arrived so I would like to connect his pc to the network.

Any further thoughts will be appreciated.

Nev

 

You network is small enough and simple enough that it might be easier to just eliminate the need for any browser service so you can ignore it being on or off.

Use a static IP address for each PC. No DHCP assigned values. Unless there is some consideration that prevents, I'd suggest
192.168.0.nnn where nnn is any number from 1 to 254
255.255.255.0 for the subnet mask.

Create a hosts file. Simple text file so any text editor will do nicely (notepad for example) but don't use a word processor. File name is critical and has to be hosts (with no extension). You probably already have a copy on each PC so just replace with your new one. Just put in a line beginning with an ip address of one of your PCs and followed by the PC name. Use the computer name rather than my examples.

192.168.0.1 MyLinixThingy
192.168.0.2 My2000Server
and so on

Place a copy of this file on each PC. The microsoft NT machines require it to be in windows\system32\drivers\etc (or WINNT\system32\drivers\etc) and Linux wants it in \etc as well.

The browser master is now doing the ip<->name matching for you but if the OS sees a hosts file with the info it will use that and never mess with asking the browser for the information.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Newt. All of my PCs have fixed IPs already but I had not put a HOST file on the Windows boxes.

The problem is now occurring in a slightly different form on my portable as well. The portable can see the peer to peer shares but cannot reach the file server. It clears itself after an indeterminate time as well.

I spoke to my son and he said that running the Network Identification Wizard ******* up his network as well. I wish that I had known that before I tried it.

Thanks again for the help.

Nev