Now you see em; now you dont

I havent quite figured out the pattern, or the trick yet, but why is it that when I for example go to Computer, sometimes I see my other conencted PC's ( all XP), but sometimes I dont !

Network discovery is ON.

All PC's are on the same workgroup

All PC's can be accessed by typing the computer name in explorer ( eg \\pc02 even it not listed). Soon after that, the computer name I typed in comes up on the list.

Is there a way to force the liat to always show all connected PC's?

Or ia their a consistent way to refresh the list?

I know its tied in with the ComputerBrowser service. Mine was set to Manual, but showed the service as stated. I just changed it to Auotmatic - didnt seem to make a difference though.
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Looks like a un-usual error, but i will try and figure out why, i will post to you when im done.

Many thanks for that.

I will keep an eye on how what the system reports back. I left the Services / Computer Borwser on Automatic, have rebooted a few times since and the listing happens to be good right now, but I am anxious to see if it stays that way.

What it might be is the timing on the service startup. Try setting all network services to start up automatically instead of manual. Manual means a program, or another linked service, tells that service to start. If set it to Automatic, it should run right as you start up the computer. That way, you should see the list the first time you click to browse the network.

Still not quite right, but more clues are coming out...

A few minutes ago, I was only seeing PC01 (the Win 7 machine I am now on). All my other mavhines go to sleep after a while, so I though , okay, makes sense, and good opportinity to test this out.

I remoted woke up my other Win 7 machiens ( PC05) and it niceply popped into the Netweok list in Windows explorer.

I then woke up PC02 ( an XP) machine. At first nothing happened, until I started using PC02..then it too quickly pooped in ....but and, at the same time , PC06(XP) and PC08 (Win 98!) , both popped into the list as well, even though I had not touched either.

All of the older machines have thier Computer Browser service disabled).

Hmmm , why does waking up one non-Win 7 machine, bring all the non-Win 7 back into view?

Is there some other ssetting I should have enabled or disabled, either on my Win 7 machine, or each XP machine? to get a consistent list of connected Network PC's?