Yousuf Khan said:
snip
Actually, I already did try to disable the Homegroups. I'd see a
computer on the Workgroup after several minutes, even though the
computers are pingable to each other, and I can directly access the
machines by using their absolute network names, such as
"\\machine1\folder1", or "\\machine2\printer1", even before they were
visible to the Seven machine's network neighbourhood.
Oh...Network Neighborhood, or actually, My Network Places, or just
Network in Win 7. I often just open Windows Explorer, click the + sign
next to it to expand, click the + next to Entire Network, then the +
next to Microsoft Windows Network, and it shows the Workgroups and
computers. However, if I do just click My Network Places (or Network in
Win 7), the shared folders are all there.
So I thought that maybe disabling Homegroups would aid in discovering
Workgroups sooner. After I disabled the Homegroups, I couldn't see the
other machines at all, and even the local machine own name wouldn't
show up in the list. So I re-enabled the Homegroups, and all of a
sudden the machines in the Workgroup all showed up at once! It's
confusingly weird, not sure what's going on here.
That's odd. As I said, I don't have a Homegroup set up at all, and my
Workgroups appear just as in other Windows versions.
Prior to this Seven install, I used to notice from the event logs that
my XP workgroup machines used to force a lot of master browser
elections between each other (i.e. source MRxSmb, event id 8003)
constantly. On some days there would be one such event every couple of
hours or less. Other times, it wouldn't have an issue for several days
in a row.
If you google: event id 8003 mrxsmb you will find a lot of opinions on
the issue. I'd ask in a networking forum.
Do Homegroups work in this same way? That is do they elect each other
to be masters and servants?
I really don't know, as I do not use it and have no plans to use it.
Perhaps someone in the Win 7 forums has more info:
http://www.sevenforums.com/
