Networking Windows 98 to a Windows XP or Windows 2000 workgroup....
I

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have several computers at my home office and I am stumped by this problem - my Windows XP system and Windows 2000 system can see the Windows 98 machine and shared drives just fine, but the 98 machine can't see the windows 2000 or XP machines... I've tried unjoining/rejoining the Windows 98 machine to the workgroup, reinstalling network drivers, renaming the windows 98 machine and then back to the proper workgroup name, etc.

I've checked the LMHOST file and that's properly installed too.
Any suggestions?
I have seen similar problems before. Possibly it?s a Microsoft browser problem. In a Windows network there is an election for a Master browser. Windows computers elect a master browser based on the OS. It could be possible that the Win2K and XP machines don?t recognizing the Win98 computer.

Solution (A) Assuming all the configuration settings are correct you could try installing NetBEUI an all of the machines and see if provides a quick fix.

Solution (B)
1) Verify all the TCP/IP settings. Make sure they are all in the same class and have a common mask i.e. (192.168.0.0 /24)
2) Insure that you can ping each machine
3. Make sure the workgroups match and that file and print sharing is enabled.
4) Double check the lmhost file it should look something like: 

	
	192.168.0.1     computer1        #PRE
	192.168.0.2     computer2        #PRE

5. And the hosts file:

	127.0.0.1       localhost
	192.168.0.1     computer1
	192.168.0.2     computer2

(In both of the lmhost and host files, computer1 and computer2 should be replaced with the real names you are using for your computers)

6. Create the file browser.reg with exactly the following text for the WinXP computer: 

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters]"
 IsDomainMaster"="Yes" "MaintainServerList"="Yes"

Save this file with notepad as browser.reg and enter the information into the registry.

6. Reboot

This was first published in February 2003

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