(09-15-2009) This is a eval copy of Windows 7, this was a freebie from their website, and does have the 2010 expiration. Running the Microsoft Windows 7 RC (7100), I ran into an interesting problem when attempting to browse the local network. Sometimes I'd get a list of computers with shares, sometimes I wouldn't. Trying to connect directly in explorer using \\computername would timeout with one of two errors. Same for \\computername\sharename. Either way took a while to time out, usually without any indication anything was happening (no progress indicator of any kind), often leading to several timeouts popping up within seconds of each other, this of course due to user impatience. Going to \\computerIP\sharename would always work. The errors listed in details resolved to 'the network path was not found', or, the humourous(ish) 'Unspecified Error' 0x80070035 and 0x80004005 are the errors if you are interested. Confusing, so, time to go for text mode troubleshooting. At a command prompt, net view would sometimes get a list of computers, but never get a list of shares (net view \\computername). Error 6118 during net view and Error 53 during net view \\computername or net view \\computername\sharename were the errors, 53 being more common than 6118. Again, specifying the IP instead of NetBIOS name worked well. After much googling, and trying several things (all the way to setting up a WINS server on Samba), I finally found the problem: !!! SMB/CIFS in Windows 7 (build 7100 at least) does not properly deal with multihoming seperate subnets on a single physical adapter. (See update below though, adding a second subnet AFTER boot does not always have the same effect) !!! In other words, if I have assigned 192.168.1.7, AND assigned 192.168.0.7 to an interface (network adapter), the name to IP resolution fails to 'bind' to the proper subnet, so I might get a list of computers from the .0.x network, but the next connection seems to try to use the .1.x subnet. No other computers on this network use the .0.x subnet at this time, it's mostly for configuring other devices such as routers and terminal servers. After removing the second subnet (the 192.168.0.7 address) from my adapter, NetBIOS browsing and mapping by name worked as it should. This may be another issue in Win 7 NetBIOS, I would assume that Browser elections would work on the second subnet also. This is not the case, instead, the second subnet caused a strange failure of NetBIOS name lookups. After very quick testing, it appears this does not happen with a secondary ethernet adapter or virtual interfaces. Virtual PC and VirtualBox interfaces don't trigger the problem in my very limited testing. I haven't yet tested to see if a second IP on the adapter within the same subnet works or not. I'm 50/50 whether it has the same problem, but won't know until I test it. Update (30 minutes later): This only occurs if the second subnet is bound at boot. Removing the second subnet and then adding it back in allows everything to work correctly, even after an nbtstat -R. ---Demonstration of problem--- ----Primary network address is 192.168.1.7, secondary IP is 192.168.0.7, one gateway defined of 192.168.1.1---- C:\Users\Paul>net view Server Name Remark --------------------------------------- \\BETSY-WIN7B1 \\FREENAS FreeNAS Server \\RUNT The command completed successfully. C:\Users\Paul>net view \\runt System error 53 has occurred. The network path was not found. ---End--- <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ---Demonstration of fix--- C:\Users\Paul>net view \\runt System error 53 has occurred. The network path was not found. -----Here, I removed the second IP/Subnet (192.168.0.7) from the LAN adapter, I did not restart---- C:\Users\Paul>net view \\runt Shared resources at \\runt Share name Type Used as Comment ---------------------------------------------------------- CanonBub Print Canon Bubble-Jet BJ-200 G (E) Disk ----Added the second IP/Subnet back to the LAN adapter, again, no restart---- C:\Users\Paul>nbtstat -R Successful purge and preload of the NBT Remote Cache Name Table. C:\Users\Paul>net view \\runt Shared resources at \\runt Share name Type Used as Comment -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CanonBub Print Canon Bubble-Jet BJ-200 G (E) Disk ---End--- Update 2 (another 30 mintues later): Problem does not occur with two IP's in the same subnet. (192.168.1.7 and 192.168.1.77 worked fine, even after a restart) I'm wondering if NetBIOS naming is somehow bound to an adapter or MAC address rather than an IP. I'd guess that if this problem affected machines with two subnets on two physically different adapters it would have been noticed before now. Should I need to test farther, I'd unbind the primary IP (192.168.1.7, then add it back in and see if I got the same results . I also did not retest virtual adapters bound during boot. (yes, it is a reminder to self, thank you.) Looking over this, I also wonder if a higher numbered subnet might cause the same problem. (is NetBIOS naming bound to a .0.x subnet before a .1.x, or .1.x before .2.x ?) Update 3 (9-21-2009): Tried again, did notice that even though the .1.x network was the 'primary' network bound to the ethernet, that arp -a showed everything owned by the .0.x network. Also found that on occasion, adding the second subnet after boot may result in 'confused NetBIOS', but haven't done a lot of testing on that. Haven't heard anything beyond 'thanks for the report' from MS, and so far I haven't seen any requests for this page that didn't come from me. So, having given them a few days, a link to the main page, and thus, search engines. ---End Updates--- I've emailed off to a MS Employee who was incredibly quick to respond the last time I had a question about Windows 7, of course, since it's 2 in the morning now, I don't really expect to hear anything for a day or two. (Rant) If you happen to notice a delay between the date shown at the top, and the day this is publicly available, yes, I do prefer to give a vendor a chance to explain or fix issues before advertising it to the world. After a response, or a few days, whichever comes first, I'll make this a public and searchable page. (/Rant) Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. Paul at noteablecomputers dot com