[Samba] Need Help Getting Windows XP To Use Samba Properly [Closed]

[Jeremy Allison]

On Mon, Jan 03, 2011 at 06:36:30AM -0700, Hodges, Robert CTR USAF AFMC 520 SMXS/MXDEC wrote:
> Jeremy, All,
> 
> I truly appreciate your willingness to help me work on this further.
> Unfortunately, we have simply run out of time.
> 
> To make matters worse, I cannot provide traces, logs, etc because this
> is a classified government system that cannot be exposed in any way,
> which means rather difficult and sometimes problematic troubleshooting
> limitations that may keep this problem from being solved.  However, this
> error is found all over the internet and rarely do you ever see a fix
> for it.  When I have seen one, it's not a fix that works for me.
> 
> To make matters worse, Microsoft stamped a "Microsoft has confirmed this
> to be a problem with the products specified" on WinXP and Samba.
> Microsoft has no fix, they have tried many times before, and as it now
> stands, appears to be disinterested in providing a hot fix due to the
> remaining shelf life of XP.  Any support you get form Microsoft on this
> particular issue is what they call a "best effort", and do not guarantee
> a fix like they do with their own products.
> 
> For anyone that wants to play around with this, here's the config:
> 
> All static IPs
> Workgroup only, no domain
> Solaris with Samba loaded, a few shares, enabled as WINS server,
> configured as Master Browser
> No DNS server
> XP has WINS setting pointing at Samba box, hosts file used instead of
> DNS, lmjosts file NTO in use because of WINS on Samba, XP's Computer
> Browser service disabled to force XP to see Samba box as master browser
> (otherwise will elect itself as master browser and totally ignore Samba)

My feeling is it's the disabling of the browser
service that is the problem. WinXP doesn't ignore
Samba browse priorities - set correctly Samba will
always win browse elections.

I'd like to investigate this more but have other
priorities to look at. I'm pretty sure given access
to your site I could get it up and running though,
I use to solve browsing problems like this as a
kind of mental relaxation hobby :-).

Not much I can do without logs or packet traces
though. I understand you're a secure site so that's
not possible. Shame though :-).

Cheers,

Jeremy.