I have a small Network, 2 XP machines, a router, a Maxtor NAS box and a Tablet PC (dual boots XP & Win7RC). With the NAS switched on the Win7 Tablet sees the other systems (they appear in the explorer LH pane and in Network) along with all the shares. With the NAS switched off the other computers are not visible in explorer or Network. They are accessible using UNC's and I can map the shares as network drives, With & without the NAS the two XP machines see each other and the Win 7 Tablet All the devices are members of the same workgroup. With the NAS on everything works as expected Why does its absence cause the disappearance of the other machines?

OK problem solved. For the record. Both the XP machines had been configured with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser \Parameters\IsDomainMaster as FALSE to eliminate Event ID: 8003 errors in the event logs, the XP tablet was acting as master browser when the NAS box was off, and it acted as master browser when on. With Windows 7 on the tablet and the NAS box off there was no master browser on the network, hence the problems. The only interesting thing here is that a Windows 7 box doesn't adopt the role of master browser in a Workgroup network containing XP machines. I guess this is a consequence of the new Homegroup apprroach?