Windows 7: Network Discovery Issues

Get rid of that Bonjour service, disable NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service (unless you have the glasses), disable IP Helper service, disable dns client (optional) and your services look good.

Alright, I've now finished all of that. The Network Discovery issue is still present though.

Jmachol, in a few minutes I will reboot into Windows 7 and compare your services to mine. I'll report back.

In the mean time could you post the output of nbtstat -n ?

You did netstat -n but not nbtstat -n

EDIT1: Ok I'm in Windows 7 now (had to wait for a download to finish in XP).

I notice that some services are not running on your computer that are supposed to be.

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
SSDP Discovery

You can enable them in services management.

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper should be set 'Automatic' and SSDP Discovery as 'Manual'

EDIT2: By any chance are you using third-party security software? Because they often break network discovery and/or file sharing as well.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7100]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\System32>nbtstat -n

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [0.0.0.0] Scope Id: []

No names in cache

Local Area Connection 2:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.4] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Local Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
JOSH-PC <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
JOSH-PC <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

C:\Windows\System32>

Sorry for misreading that command. Alright, I will make sure to do that to the services. I am running Avast free edition, but sharing with him has worked before while using it also.

EDIT1: I did what you said and so far the problem still exists. The setting continues to set itself to off and I still get "the network path was not found" error.

Any other ideas guys? Thanks for the help so far also!

After you changed the services, you'll need to start them manually or reboot.

The output of all of your commands looks OK . You're right that Avast should not be a problem. I have it on my laptop, and no problems with file sharing.

Try to uninstall/reinstall "client for microsoft networks" and "file and print sharing" protocols. You can do that under the properties for your network adapter.

Thank you guys for all of your help. The problem has been resolved and I can now share with him. I wonder what turned all of that off in the first place?

Hi could you walk me through the same problem? My brother's comp got a Windows 7 virus recently. I managed to get rid of the virus, but now the internet seems to have gone haywire (it wouldn't work when the virus was active). The computer is hardwired to the router and the computer recognizes the connection, but none of the browsers work. In addition the I can't turn the network detection on. Everytime I do it and hit "save changes" the settings revert back to off. I don't know what else to do. Any advice would be appreciated.