I have a Windows XP issue. I have a computer on a network, with a Windows 2000 server. The XP machine can resolve to the IP address:
\10.0.0.199 and it shows the shares just fine if you put that in the Run box
but…
ewserver (the name of the server) doesn’t…it tells me
ewserver doesn’t exist (or something like that)
I put in a LMHOSTS file with the proper entry, told the TCP/IP advanced settings to use the LMHOSTS file, and I can access the server…but…
this is NOT the way I want to do it. And for some reason, some of my security settings don’t seem to transfer using LMHOSTS (similar to what happens if using NetBEUI - but this may be incidental for other reasons).
Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve googled it, and received a LOT of possible solutions, and tried most of them - NONE of them have worked, but I’m open to information here.
For what it’s worth, this workstation was used by another user, and I re-named the original user to the new user. The original user worked fine…
Are both of the machines in the same subnet? And are they both members of the same workgroup?
For Windows to find your server by name, the DNS server has to know of the new server. If the new server gets its IP address by DDNS then there shouldn’t be a problem. If the new server has a static IP address, then that address will have to be added manually on the NS server. If the new server is running DNS itself, then you could add it on your XP box as a secondary DNS server.
This might be cargo cult IT, but for workgroups I also set the the DNS suffix on each machine to the workgroup name.
It doesn’t sound like the OP is using DNS or WINS or whatever for name resolution. That leaves LMHOSTS, hosts, and NetBT broadcasts (jeez, this is taking me back to the bad old days 
). Sounds like the server is not responding to the broadcasts. Is the server on the same subnet as the client? If not, broadcasts won’t work, hence the need for an entry in hosts or lmhosts. Maybe the client is configured as a P-node (one that doesn’t use broadcasts) rather than a B-node (seems unlikely)?
Primary and secondary DNS are set to the internet provider’s servers. The server and all workstations are on the same subnet. Note that this was NOT a problem on this workstation UNTIL the user was re-named.
Wait - that’s not true…let me clarify…
The new server (a 2003 server, not 2000, my bad) is replacing a Windows XP workstation that was sharing files with the users on the network. It now occupies the same IP address as the former workstation, has the same NetBIOS name, and the same share names as the workstation had. ALL of the other workstations on the network seem to be working with this setup, EXCEPT this one. The former file-sharing workstation has been assigned a new NetBIOS name and IP address (additionally, it is powered off right now).