[Samba] Mixed Network Issues

[Jim Beard]

Howdy Super Samba Subscribers!

	I'm looking for a little advice on trouble-shooting our network.  We 
have several large unix partitions that are shared via samba and act as 
our central file stores.  Most of our development machines are Linux or 
Unix systems.  Some of our business people use mixed flavors of 
Windows.   Mostly Windows XP however we have a few older Windows OSs as 
well.
	We have had few problems for the past five or six months.  However 
last week something strange happen.  One Windows XP system, 2 Windows 
98 systems, and a Mac OS X system decided that they can no longer view 
the network.  They don't see each other or other systems.  They also 
don't see the samba partitions.  Most all of the other Windows XP 
systems are still fine.  The Mac OS X system can still mount specific 
samba shares, but can't browse to see that they are available.
	The only thing I know of that changed around the time of the problems, 
was the addition of a new Windows XP system to the network.  Nothing 
seemed weird about its setup and configuration, and it has no problems 
with the current networking.
	Obviously I can't expect anyone on this list to know exactly what my 
problem is, but I was hoping to get some advice on how to troubleshoot 
this situation.  How should I go about attempting to diagnose the 
problem??

Jim Beard
counterclaim.com, Inc
http://www.counterclaim.com
http://openefm.sourceforge.net
(800) 264-8145