Exploring network takes FOREVER

Hi Me again,

I wanted to send this post separatly, cause its a differnt issue however it kind of pertains to the same thing.

When I am browsing through the network to try and find the other PC / Laptop I use explorer and go via my network places > entire network and as soon as I hit "microsoft windows network" the PC freezes for about 2 minutes and then FINALLY finds the workgroup that I created.

Once I click on that work group it then freezes AGAIN and takes ages to get back into that workgroup.

I presume that this is the same cause of when I am trying to "save as" and browse through to find a location to save as it takes about 2 mins to allow me to browse, its just hanging all the time.

Any Ideas on or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thanks again in advance.

Your problem sounds typical. I have that problem sometimes.
Unfortunalty with all Windows products, browsing via my network places is pretty dam slow and can crash or lock up. Some time it results in "explorer.exe" error or causes the pc to crash.

My suggestion is to create a drive map and use this to browse the network files. OR create a shortcut to explorer.exe and pass the name.
e.g.
explorer /e, \\Server\FileShare
PErhaps it can be the connection between the pc and the host pc.


If those methods do not work then you may have a problem with transmission of 100-Megabit network packets (Q315237) .

This is because Windows sucks. Pure and simple.

I've tried this experiment on my laptop and my other computers several times, across reformats and different networks (routers, switches) and everything, and more often than not there will be lag. Not usually two minutes of it (though this has happened before), but ten seconds or more.

When I use smbclient under linux, it's instantaneous. I'd like an explanation for it, but until then, I'm satisfied with telling you that Windows sucks.

Sorry I cannot give you a "run this program to fix it" solution.

Are you browsing between win2000/xp computers and 9x boxes? Do you have any other network providers installed?

Had similar issues, turned out switching the network provider order did the trick. Make sure windows is first.

WWB

-Ox, they are correct in saying that windows sucks with networking, but there ARE ways to avoid the hassle.

A good practice is to never browse the network unless you dont know the address of the machine youre trying to access.

This problem often happens when different versions of windows are on the same network, because in a workgroup every time someone connects to the workgroup the computers hold an "election" to see who is to become the "master browser" which acts as a server which hosts a list and details of all the computers on the workgroup.

Isn't there a network setting something along the lines of "Keep all network files up to date" ? This is in the deepest depths of my memory so could be way off.