laptop cannot see linux server running samba on the same network

Hi,

I'm setting up home media server. At least trying to...

My home network looks like this:
2 laptops (ubuntu/windows7) and a home server (ubuntuServer + Samba).

I've samba setup in a way to provide password-less access to share folders. I secured it by blocking all IPs but the range I use at home. (I can provide config details upon request).

With ubuntu laptop, I can connect to server without any issue. I just go to network tabs and can see windows WORKGROUP share smb share both pointing to same folder. So all works good. I can also mount external drive without issue, or create network drive. Connection never times out and it stays all good.

Now windows7 turned out to be a problem.

Problem#1 Using "map network drive" tool I cannot use hostname (server.local) I've to use IP. This means that every time server box is asigned a new IP by my dumb router I have to delete the drive and run wizard again. This is very annoying. Since IP doesn'ts tay static I cannot use WINS or map IP in hosts file. So I'm open to suggestions from your side.

Problem#2 Win7 disconnects network drive every 15 minutes (I think), on SAMBA I configured to stay live all the time. But windows has its own mind so it doesn't keep connection live. This results in, lateness when I try to go to my computer as OS tries to find and add drive on network. Every 2 times in 5 this procedure gives me error, host cannot be reached or something like this. So I've to delete folder and remap drive again, which surprisingly works every time! so annoying! I don't have to do this in ubuntu at all, I don't understand why windows behaves in this way. Any help?

Problem#3 Very often I cannot ping linux server from windows using hostname, like this: ping server.local - but I can at the same time ping with IP. And also from ubuntu atm I can ping server.local without any problems.


Any ideas, what I can do? I'm not much experienced with win7. I've fallen out of MS grace since vista, but win7 is a good OS. But default networking capabilities are lame, I imagine MS wants us to use Microsoft server.

Anyhow,

ideas?

THANKS!

difficult problem? come on, help!