Vista networking problem.

Factual Questions
1

I have a network of several computers that run on XP except one computer that runs Vista. All of them belong to the same workgroup and IP class.

The problem is with the Vista machine. It cannot see the other computers by hostname. For example, when I map a network drive, if I use \SERVER\C it won’t connect. But it does connect when I use the IP directly, ie. \169.254.49.6\C.

That wouldn’t be too much of a problem because all computers have static IPs, but I have a WD MyBook network drive that changes IP dynamically and the only way to access is by hostname.

Vista has some networking options I am not familiar with, so that must be the problem. Any ideas?

2

Is this your problem?

3

I configured the Vista computer to obtain an IP automatically and I noticed that while the rest of the network has IP adresses in the 169.254.49.x range, the automatically assigned IP was in the 169.254.x.x range.

I then used the original static IP but changed the subnet mask from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.0.0 and now everything works.

That’s strange!