Find and seek computers in My Network Places

[Rbreb13]

Find and seek computers in My Network Places

One of the biggest problems that users have in home and small office networks running Microsoft OS’s is network browsing. This service makes sure you see all the computers on your network in the My Network Places folder. However, what if you don't see other computers?

In these cases, here's what you can do:

• Make sure your network connection is working. Ping yourself and another computer. If this succeeds, the network connection is okay.

• Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP on your network connection. Open the Network Connections folder, right-click your connection, and select Properties. Choose Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties. On the General tab, select Advanced. Go to the WINS tab, select Enable NetBIOS Over TCP/IP, and click OK.

• Disable firewalls when troubleshooting.

• Make sure all computers are in the same workgroup. Right-click My Computer and select Properties. On the Computer Name tab, note the Workgroup Text Box.

• Depending on how you start your computer, you may have to wait about 15 minutes before My Network Places is populated.

• If you still don't see any computers in the My Network Places folder, you can connect to them by other methods. One way is to type \\computername or \\IP_address in the Run dialog box on the Start menu. This will directly connect to the remote computer. Another workaround is to use the Map Network Drive option in the Tools menu in Windows Explorer. This option allows you to directly map to a shared folder from a remote computer.