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Is there a way to somehow that I can speed up the ability to see my new computer on the network? I'm using Windows Vista

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4 Answers 4

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Are you trying to solve a connection problem? Or just want to browse?

If you need to connect to a computer, just make a static DHCP assignment and call it by IP.

You can even reference share drives with ips:

\\<ip address>\<share folder>

I've long given up on browsing for computers that ain't on a domain.

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  • I'm talking about browsing, or being able to see it in my finder
    – alexus
    Aug 26, 2009 at 14:15
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There is a security change in Vista/Server 2008/7 which requires SMB signing to be turned on within a domain, and on non-domain computers is on by default. This is to ensure that communication between devices are always secure when using Network Shares. However this is not compatible with MacOSX. TechRepublic discusses this as part of their article on making Windows and OSX live happily together.

I have however personally not made this change, since it is extremely rare for me to have to connect to my other machines via the network, and when I do using Finder's Connect to Server is more then sufficient to do it with. I have however tested it and it does work.

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FYI:

there is a bug in Vista (whats new) that makes Vista computer is non-visible to Macs, and thats what caused for me not being able to see it, and that's why I complain in regards to speed of "showing up" computer on the network in my finder.

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    This is actually not a bug. It is has to do with the way SMB signing is done. As part of security the SMB signing is on by default in Vista/7 and MacOSX needs this off to be able to traverse the domain. This has been well documented on TechNet.
    – BinaryMisfit
    Aug 29, 2009 at 16:00
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That depends on the network:

  • In a pure windows Vista network, it might take up to 15 minutes for your computer to become visible. That's simply the way that the computer browser service works. And that's assuming that there are no conflicts between several browse-master computers each taking over a sub-segment of the network and hiding it from other computers.
  • Vista's network is incompatible with XP. You need to install on each XP computer Microsoft's Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder for XP.
  • If your computer is part of a domain, there should be no problem with it being visible.

Microsoft's network browsing is a big mess, but there is no magic solution for it (except to construct yourself a domain).

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