Windows 7 - network coming and going

Ive just installed the 64bit signature edition - curtesy of MS and House party. Setup went ok but I am having an issue with my network not staying put. what I mean is that I can click on the network link - go to the network and find maybe my pc and one other. Another time I will find maybe an additional pc or a totally different one or all of them. But the one Im havng the most problems with is my external drive which is linked direct to the network. If I use its installed software I have no problem but if I try to access it through the network - as I would normally to stream our music - I frequently find it is missing off the list.
What I should have is as follows:
PC1 - me cable connection - Win 7 (64bit retail)
PC2 - son 1 - cable connection - Win 7RC (32 bit)
PC3 - son 2 - cable connection - Win 7RC (32 bit)
Laptop1 - Daughter's - wireless - no problem so far - Vista Home Premium (32 bit)
Drive 1 - external network drive - cable connection

It played up for a couple of hours but at present they are all there but it gets annoying when one or another just seems to disappear for no reason that I can see. Ive checked the various setting and nothing has changed apart from my having done a clean install of Win 7 on PC1. Only thing different on that one is Ive pt on the 64bit version instead of the 32 but I cant believe that that is the cause. Any suggestions?

Do you have this selected or not?

Yes it is sellected. I assume I dont want it selected?

I am not sure about that I do not use home groups. Nor do I stream music. I suggested that as a place to experiment with your share settings. It seems that if it worked before then it should work now unless the finished product is conflicting with the beta's. Good luck to you.

ok - well thanks for the help. I'll keep looking. It seems to be stable at the moment so maybe its settle down, but I wont know till I reboot again.

I have been running a six pc network since the beta was released back in Jan. I have had times that I could see all my network and times of half there and half gone. Just like what you are experiencing. I have only three win 7's and a Vista, then some xp's I just did add a Windows home server. I do not run home groups because not all my PC's are 7's. I do use workgroups. I have some wired and some wireless. Recently the wireless seemed to be the ones that drop of the network. Probably cheap hardware ha. I would be curios to find out how your setup works when you get son1 and son2 on the Final 7. Hope you stay with us here on SF to share your trials and tribulations. Enjoy!

I replaced my router today and the problem appears to have disappeared so I guess the issue was that not the network itself.

Thanks for the report Antony. Good news, new hardware, Awesome!