NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
lightsabre
Oct 30, 2011Guide
Seagate GoFlex USB & NV - No Windows Network Browsing
This is more FYI, but if someone has ideas what may have caused this, I am interested. Not sure if this is the right forum area either. After connecting a 2TB Seagate GoFlex USB (using USB 2, but t...
maxblack
Oct 30, 2011Aspirant
I'm not a networking expert, but apparently in a Windows network one of the computers keeps track of all the devices thereon such that when you go to "My Network" you can see all that are available. If you turn-off the computer serving as this "Master Browser", there is an "election" that takes place among the remaining PCs and one gets elected to play this role again. I have the Computer Browser service turned-off on all my Windows PCs, and a non-Netgear NAS that's on 24/7 serves this function.
I have no clue how your NV could serve to mess-up the election process, but here for fun is a Visual Basic script that you can run to see what is serving as Master Browser on your network. Note I had to fiddle with the line which says ThePattern4 =... to get my workgroup (HOME) to read properly:
You almost certainly have Visual Basic running on one if-not-all of your PCs--give it a try. Just cut & paste the above into Notepad, then save it with a name with a .vbs extension e.g. FindMasterBrowser.vbs, and double-click on it.
I have no clue how your NV could serve to mess-up the election process, but here for fun is a Visual Basic script that you can run to see what is serving as Master Browser on your network. Note I had to fiddle with the line which says ThePattern4 =... to get my workgroup (HOME) to read properly:
Dim WshShell, FileSystem, RegularExpression, PFound1, Dummy, TheNVFile, TheLine, ThePattern1, ThePattern2
Dim Flag, SysName, NBTable, ThePattern3, PFound2, ThePattern4, WrkGrp, TheText, ThePattern, Match
Dim Matches, TheMatch, NBCommand, TheNBTFile
Const ForReading = 1
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set FileSystem = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set RegularExpression = New RegExp
Dummy = WshShell.Popup ( "Finding Master Browser. Please Wait...",1,"Find Master Browser Utility",64)
WshShell.Run "Cmd.exe /c Net View > C:\NetViewList.txt", 2,True
Set TheNVFile = FileSystem.OpenTextFile("C:\NetViewList.txt", ForReading, True)
Do While TheNVFile.AtEndOfStream <> True
TheLine = TheNVFile.ReadLine
ThePattern1 = "\\"
PFound1 = FindPattern(TheLine, ThePattern1)
If PFound1 Then
ThePattern2 = "\\\\\w*"
Flag = "1"
SysName = GetPattern(TheLine, ThePattern2, Flag)
NBTable = GetNBTable(SysName)
ThePattern3 = "MSBROWSE"
PFound2 = FindPattern(NBTable, ThePattern3)
If PFound2 Then
ThePattern4 = "\w* \w* <1E>"
Flag = "2"
WrkGrp = GetPattern(NBTable, ThePattern4, Flag)
Exit Do
End If
End If
Loop
If PFound2 Then
Dummy = MsgBox("The computer acting as the Master Browser" & vbCrLf &_
" for the workgroup " & WrkGrp & vbCrLf &_
" is " & SysName, 4160, "Find Master Browser Utility")
Else
Dummy = MsgBox("No Master Browser found at this time. " & vbCrLf &_
"Chances are that an election is in progress.", 4144, "Find Master Browser Utility")
End If
TheNVFile.Close
Rem FileSystem.DeleteFile("C:\NetViewList.txt")
Wscript.Quit
Function FindPattern(TheText, ThePattern)
RegularExpression.Pattern = ThePattern
If RegularExpression.Test(TheText) Then
FindPattern = "True"
Else
FindPattern = "False"
End If
End Function
Function GetPattern(TheText, ThePattern, Flag)
RegularExpression.Pattern = ThePattern
Set Matches = RegularExpression.Execute(TheText)
For Each Match in Matches
TheMatch = Match.Value
If Flag = "1" Then TheMatch = Mid(TheMatch, 3)
If Flag = "2" Then TheMatch = Left(TheMatch, 15)
Next
GetPattern = TheMatch
End Function
Function GetNBTable(SysName)
NBCommand = "nbtstat -a " & SysName
WshShell.Run "Cmd.exe /c " & NBCommand &" > C:\NBTList.txt", 2,True
Set TheNBTFile = FileSystem.OpenTextFile("C:\NBTList.txt", ForReading, True)
GetNBTable = TheNBTFile.ReadAll
TheNBTFile.Close
Rem FileSystem.DeleteFile("C:\NBTList.txt")
End Function
You almost certainly have Visual Basic running on one if-not-all of your PCs--give it a try. Just cut & paste the above into Notepad, then save it with a name with a .vbs extension e.g. FindMasterBrowser.vbs, and double-click on it.
Related Content
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!