Win 7 Explorer Not Show Network Drive

Not sure if you guys are still checking this thread but the problem you're describing is certainly the closest I've found to my own. I have several systems on a home network with two NAS boxes (a Synology 211j and a QNAP TS-212) as well. The QNAP is the newest addition and I had everything accessible and visible in the Network Explorer window on my primary Win7 Pro (x64) system as well as on my other systems (all Win7 Home Premium x64). I had also mapped folders on the 211j and the TS-212. I was recently thinking of setting up some surveillance cameras through the NAS so I went in and set up static IPs for the NAS boxes in my Router (Netgear WNDR3700) and in both of the NAS's. Now I can't see either of the NAS boxes in the Network Explorer and only the QNAP shows up as an "Other Device" on the Network Map, though both can be accessed easily (and then are temporarily listed as available systems in the lefthand navigation pane) by typing in their network location (eg \\QNAP-NAS), and their mapped drive folders are visible. Both show up and work as Media Streaming Devices (their primary use) as well. Not a big deal but it was nice being able to simply click on their icon in the network Details Pane to access folders that I did not want to map. Have turned off Master Browser options in both NAS boxes and set LAN Authentication Level in Local Security Policies to Send LM & NTLM to no avail. Any solution ideas would help, I'm not particularly network savy except for what I've read online....

ltuff1 said:

Have turned off Master Browser options in both NAS boxes...

Then I wonder what is serving as Master Browser on your network. I would check this first--cut & paste the following into a Text document and give it a .vbs extension (Visual Basic, should be on one or all of your PCs) and run it to see. As I think I said before, my MB is a 24/7 NAS box, and then I Disable the Computer Browser service on my PCs so they don't bother to keep track of names:

Code:

Dim WshShell, FileSystem, RegularExpression, PFound1, Dummy, TheNVFile, TheLine, ThePattern1, ThePattern2 
Dim Flag, SysName, NBTable, ThePattern3, PFound2, ThePattern4, WrkGrp, TheText, ThePattern, Match 
Dim Matches, TheMatch, NBCommand, TheNBTFile
Const ForReading = 1
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set FileSystem = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set RegularExpression = New RegExp
Dummy = WshShell.Popup ( "Finding Master Browser. Please Wait...",1,"Find Master Browser Utility",64)
WshShell.Run "Cmd.exe /c Net View > C:\NetViewList.txt", 2,True
Set TheNVFile = FileSystem.OpenTextFile("C:\NetViewList.txt", ForReading, True)
Do While TheNVFile.AtEndOfStream <> True
  TheLine = TheNVFile.ReadLine
  ThePattern1 = "\\"
  PFound1 = FindPattern(TheLine, ThePattern1)
  If PFound1 Then
    ThePattern2 = "\\\\\w*"
    Flag = "1"
    SysName = GetPattern(TheLine, ThePattern2, Flag)
    NBTable = GetNBTable(SysName)
    ThePattern3 = "MSBROWSE"
    PFound2 = FindPattern(NBTable, ThePattern3)
    If PFound2 Then
      ThePattern4 = "\w* \w*          <1E>"
      Flag = "2"
      WrkGrp = GetPattern(NBTable, ThePattern4, Flag)
      Exit Do
    End If
  End If
Loop
If PFound2 Then
  Dummy = MsgBox("The computer acting as the Master Browser" & vbCrLf &_
  " for the workgroup " & WrkGrp & vbCrLf &_
  " is " & SysName, 4160, "Find Master Browser Utility")
Else
  Dummy = MsgBox("No Master Browser found at this time. " & vbCrLf &_
  "Chances are that an election is in progress.", 4144, "Find Master Browser Utility")
End If
TheNVFile.Close
Rem FileSystem.DeleteFile("C:\NetViewList.txt")
Wscript.Quit
Function FindPattern(TheText, ThePattern)
   RegularExpression.Pattern = ThePattern
  If RegularExpression.Test(TheText) Then
     FindPattern = "True"
  Else
     FindPattern = "False"
  End If
End Function

Function GetPattern(TheText, ThePattern, Flag)
  RegularExpression.Pattern = ThePattern
  Set Matches = RegularExpression.Execute(TheText) 
  For Each Match in Matches
    TheMatch = Match.Value 
    If Flag = "1" Then TheMatch = Mid(TheMatch, 3)
    If Flag = "2" Then TheMatch = Left(TheMatch, 15)
  Next
  GetPattern = TheMatch
End Function

Function GetNBTable(SysName)
  NBCommand = "nbtstat -a " & SysName
  WshShell.Run "Cmd.exe /c " & NBCommand &" > C:\NBTList.txt", 2,True
  Set TheNBTFile = FileSystem.OpenTextFile("C:\NBTList.txt", ForReading, True)
  GetNBTable = TheNBTFile.ReadAll
  TheNBTFile.Close
Rem  FileSystem.DeleteFile("C:\NBTList.txt")
End Function

hmm...Thanx Maxseven but I get a runtime error running the .vbs script (line 10 permission denied) so it fails to find my MB...

Maybe if you right-click on the .vbs and Run as Administrator? It doesn't like that you are writing to the C:\ location for some reason. Or you could Rem(ark) out that line cuz it's just writing a logfile anyway.

Wasn't able to get the .vbs script to run by remarking out line 10 (stalled at line 11) and right clicking didn't give me the option to run as administrator (would just open and run with the Windows Based Script Host) but my problem has suddenly resolved. Not sure what I did but I was going through the settings on my Netgear WNDR3700 router and noticed that I wasn't seeing my USB drive (I have one attached directly to the router) in the Network Explorer either. I tried setting it as an approved USB drive which made it show up temporarily, toggled a couple of other settings on and off with no effect, and was then looking at upgrading my router firmware (it turned out I already had the most recent update and so I cancelled the upload) when all of my NAS drives (and the USB drive) showed up in both panes of the Network Explorer. They now stay visible after I close the window and reopen it and are still there after a reboot. So my problem is gone and it seems to have been related to the Router settings, just not sure how....oh well. Thanks for the help anyway.

Well I never argue with success, and hope the problem is gone for good.

I can only say that I have often-times had individual PCs disappear from the "Network Neighborhood" before and they have always "come back". I don't know myself what the timing is for the so-called Master Browser to update its list--sometimes computers appear in seconds and other times it seems like it takes hours.

Glad you're working now.

In case anyone finds this thread, and they have trouble getting the VBS file working because of permissions, just do the following edit:

Replace all instances of "C:\" with "C:\Users\<yourname>\Desktop\", where "yourname" is your login name.

If your home directory isn't on the C: drive, or isn't in the Users directory, change those as well.

Basically, just replace "C:\" with the location of your Desktop folder (follow by a "\").

This way, you won't have problems with permissions, because you won't be trying to write to the C:\ directory!