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I disabled the DNS/DHCP on my router and activated those services on a Windows 2008 server. Everything is working fine, but when I go to browse the network none of the machines can see any other machines, whereas they could when DNS/DHCP was handled by the router. All client settings are the same.

I'm unsure what actually drives this lookup for Windows. What is it and how can I enable it in Windows 2008 DNS or DHCP?

Wesley
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Ryan Peters
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  • You must enable and configure WINS for `Network Neighborhood/My Network Places/magic network thing` to function. Which client are you using to open the (XP/Vista/7/2003/2008)? – mbrownnyc Feb 08 '13 at 18:06
  • Ok, I do not have that configured. Would my Actiontec router be running a similar role? Not sure what you mean about the client. I'm RDP onto the server. – Ryan Peters Feb 08 '13 at 18:18
  • What about NetBIOS? How can I configure that with windows DNS? – Ryan Peters Feb 08 '13 at 18:34
  • The client would be the access point for which you are hitting "network neighborhood". Actiontec, no. But it's quite possible that by using the Actiontec, your clients were allowed to elect a Browser Master (in replacement for a configured WINS server), but when they had their networking stack configured by DHCP, they no longer were electing the Browser Master. Let me look a bit further quickly and I'll post back. – mbrownnyc Feb 08 '13 at 18:36
  • Yes, client is a Win 8 machine. Should I use NetBIOS or wins? Either way, I can't figure out how to configure them. Thanks. – Ryan Peters Feb 08 '13 at 18:38
  • Look here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd894432(WS.10).aspx or look in this direction: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ZA/windows7/What-is-network-discovery Sorry I can't provide anything explicit. – mbrownnyc Feb 08 '13 at 18:43
  • let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7440/discussion-between-ryan-peters-and-mbrownnyc) – Ryan Peters Feb 08 '13 at 18:46
  • Sorry Ryan. I left for the day at work. As johnny points out below, Network Discovery is one way Windows clients learn about each other. The later Windows clients have all sorts of magical things that they do by default to make all Windows computers on the same network play nice together (particularly look up why you "shouldn't disable IPv6"). WINS/NBT is an old magical option, but Network Discovery is really the newest magic! So I guess you should consider that. Read up on them all, the above links cover both options. *poof* – mbrownnyc Feb 09 '13 at 20:29

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Did you check network properties on each of the workstations and see if network discovery is active? I would think that since you changed your network around, the clients may be waiting for you to specify if the new network is a home/work/public network again.

johnny
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The answer was I just had to reboot the machines, and they showed up one-by-one in the network listing. Some still had the old DNS server and others simply needed a reboot. Johnny was technically correct, as was mbrownnyc. Thank you both.

Ryan Peters
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