Accessing workgroup shares with Server 2003

[SpankySpanky]

Hi All

I am having a problem that is probably an easy one. Any help would be appreciated.

I have a workgroup network at home with several computers. I have just installed Server 2003 R2 on my notebook because it was a prerequisite for the software I need to use. The other computers are XP Home and Pro. I set the server up at install time to be part of the MSHOME workgroup.

I am able to type \\myshare in the Internet Explorer URL box, on any of the XP machines, and access a shared directory on any of the others. But I cannot do this with the server. If I type \\myshare in IE then immediately I get an error "Windows cannot find \\myshare. Check the spelling..." The same problem happens if I type it in at Start -> Run.

There is zero delay before I get this message, normally there is a little delay while the network gets the directories in that share, but it seems like it does not even try to look.

In My Network Places if I click on MSHOME, nothing appears. If I do this on the XP machines I get a list of the other machines on this workgroup.

I can however ping the IP address of the server from XP, no problems, so a connection is there.

I turned firewall off on each end to make sure that wasnt a problem.

I also made a share on the server and tried to access it from XP, by typing \\server2003 and \\server2003\myshare but no success there either.

Is there something I have to set to make server 2003 behave 'normally' on the workgroup? I know as a server it is designed for a domain but I need to be able to access items on the workgroup. Thanks for any clues.

 

[markdmac]

You need to setup DNS so your server can be contacted by name from the workstations, or add an entry to the workstations HOSTS file to identify the server name and its IP address. Do the same for the server so it knows the name and IP for the workstations.

If you are currently using DHCP from a router, you should consider setting up DNS and DHCP on the server. Allow the server to give out the IPs which will then be registered with DNS.

For the network browsing, enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP on the server.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

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