Even though NetBIOS over TCP/IP is enabled, you can PING (Packet Inter Net Groper) workgroup computers and they can PING you, and no firewall is blocking your traffic, you cannot view other workgroup computers on the network on a Windows XP-based computer.
This behavior will occur if your computer only uses p-node for name resolution, because WINS is NOT available for NetBIOS name resolution on a peer-to-peer network.
To determine if p-node is configured:
1. Open a CMD.EXE window.
2. Type ipconfig /all and press Enter.
3. If Node Type is reported as Peer-Peer, your computer uses p-node.
4. To remove the p-node definition, type delpnode.bat and press Enter.
5. Shutdown and restart your computer.
delpnode.bat contains:
@echo off setlocal set key="HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters" for /f "Tokens=1" %%a in ('REG QUERY %key%^|findstr /i "NodeType DhcpNodeType"') do ( @echo REG DELETE %key% /V %%a /F REG DELETE %key% /V %%a /F ) endlocalNOTE: See TCP/IP and NBT Configuration Parameters for Windows XP.