How can I get IP Name Resolution working between XP boxes on LAN?

Question

Before I added an Ooma phone to my home network, I could get to other machines on my network by typing "\dadscomputer\dadsfolder", for instance, if that folder was shared. Now, if I want to do the same thing, I need to type "\172.27.35.115\dadsfolder". That works, but it's a pain. I know I could make shortcuts, but as I add shares, I'd need to maintain those, and if IP's change I'd be hosed. Seems like I should be able to get local name resolution to work, by hostname.

BACKGROUND: Earlier, when it worked, I had:

[modem] > [switch] > [Windows XP computers]

Ooma (voip box) suggested that for quality of service concerns, I connect it like this:

[modem] > [ooma] > [switch] > [Windows XP computers].

I'd like to leave it that way, since that's the most reliable set-up for voip (no big download or upload would cause a telephone call to be messed-up).

So the ooma gets it's IP from the modem (192.x.x.x) and the Windows XP computers get their IP's from the ooma device (172.x.x.x).

Name resolution on all the computers on the network used to work before ooma, and the XP machines' configs have not changed. What certainly changed is now the ooma device is managing DHCP and, according to the menu on the device web interface, it's also handing DNS (but that might be for external name resolution). I searched every option in the menu tree of the device, but can't find anything to change.

Given that, for what ever reason, the ooma isn't helping with my local lan name resolution, what can I do within the Windows XP configuration screens to get name resolution to work? By the way, I never had any kind of "master/slave" relationship on my home network because there's never one machine that's turned on all of the time. But it seems to me there was some kind of workgroup or something that maybe allowed name resolution?

Answer 1

Just to check your ooma device should be releasing IP addresses from private IP blocks for DHCP from 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255. If they're using 172.x.x.x addresses outside that range the network broadcasts won't be working properly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network), which is how they discover each other for name resolution. You could try using a more commonly used private range 10.x.x.x to see if that helps at all.

I recommend you have a look at this excellent TechRepulic article on the subject:

How NetBIOS name resolution really works