Strange problem connecting via NT

[Steve Resnick]

I am running Version 1.9.18p7 and I have a win95 machine and an NT machine
connecting via ethernet. I have, for security reasons, reorganized my
network to reduce outside threats.
The network is set up using RFC1918 addressing, and I am using Linux 2.0.33
to transparent proxy outside requests to the net via a dialup PPP session
with a dedicated IP address. 

The global section of my smb.conf reads: 
[global]
   comment = Linux Machine
   load printers = no
   guest account = nobody
   share modes = yes
   security = user
   status = yes
   browseable = yes
   wins support = yes
   socket address = 192.168.0.1
   auto services = public steve patti
   lock directory = /usr/local/samba/var/locks
   server string = Gateway Server
   netbios name = gw

smbd is run with "smbd -D" and nmbd is run with: 
"nmbd -D -n gw -B 192.168.0.255 -N 255.255.255.0 -H /etc/lmhosts"

/etc/lmhosts contains: 
192.168.0.1 gw
192.168.0.2 zippy
192.168.0.3 herbie

All these machines are properly in DNS, as well. 

The Windoze machine, zippy, can access the shares via the network
neighborhood or by mapping a network drive and all seems to work quite
nicely. 

The NT machine shows "gw" in the network neighborhood and the map network
drive dialog, but when trying to expand gw, I get an error 53: The network
path cannot be found. 

If I do an NMB lookup, I get: 
nmblookup gw
Sending queries to 192.168.0.255
name_query failed to find name gw

Which would explain why NT cannot see the machine. The two questions are, 
why can Windoze see it when the NetBIOS name can't be found, and why can't
the name be found, based on the above configuration. 

It is interesting to note that I can connect drives from the NT machine by
using IP addresses in place of NetBIOS names. 

TIA,
Steve