Cannot turn on Network discovery and file sharing

I have 2 PCs connected to a Win 2003 Ent server domain (not R2 - this is the original 2003 version), although the Domain was originally setup using Win2K My laptop, which connects wirelessly has network discovery turned on and no probs. My desktop (Wkstn1), however, does not allow me to turn on the service. I'm on a domain not homegroup.

Both Win 7 installs were upgrades on Vista Ultimate, and both PCs have pretty much the same software. I'm using ESET Nod32 v4 on both (server has no AV). I was at one time able to turn on Network discovery (share drives and printers on the domain). Now no go.

The server has DHCP and DNS enabled on a static IP, and AD of course. I reserved IPs for the 2 PCs on the network. The gateway is a hardware firewall router (Watchguard) which also has a static IP.

I've tried resetting the Wkstn1 account (and resubmitting credentials) to see if that improves things but no. Group policy updates fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Tom

All are running. Same issue. This just drives me nuts. I moved recently and the server was down for a few days. I turned the router's DHCP service on, which prob confused my Wkstn Domain settings.

Same issue here. Noticed that the Workstation service was not runnning and it can't be started because of dependencies.

Found out that Workstation is dependent on Alerter and Messenger and these two doesn't eveen exist in my list of services.

Any idea how to restore them? This has worked previously and I cant think of anything I installed recently!

Not sure. I checked my Workstation service and I don't find Alerter or Messenger as dependencies. I don't have either listed as services either. My issue was resolved by tweaking Group Policy on the server (I've since upgraded to 2008 R2 x64)

oisin53 said:

Not sure. I checked my Workstation service and I don't find Alerter or Messenger as dependencies. I don't have either listed as services either. My issue was resolved by tweaking Group Policy on the server (I've since upgraded to 2008 R2 x64)

Perhaps my info about dependencies was wrong then, found it on some website I don't remember. But the problem persists. Can you give me a hint on how you tweaked group policies on the server?

try turning off windows firewall. Then you should be able to turn on file sharing and network discovery

chris23i said:

try turning off windows firewall. Then you should be able to turn on file sharing and network discovery

Worked just fine.