PC not showing in Network

[alanjarvis57]

Totally baffled by this one! A while ago I set up a WinXP PC on my network as a file server. It worked fine, there is a Mapped drive to it from my laptop, desktop etc. Today it doesn't work. The mapped drive won't connect, the PC does not show up in the Win 7 network. I can't get to it by typing \\servername or \\ipaddress, BUT I can remote desktop to it and I can ping it. I tried turning off the firewall but nothing. The only thing I have changed since I last used it is I have a Laptop running on my network which runs Linux. Any ideas?

 

[alanjarvis57]

After many hours of research and trying various things none of which worked I resolved the problem by doing a system restore to a point a couple of week ago (early Feb). It now works perfectly, as before. Clearly one of the Windows Updates messed it up, maybe the Windows 7 service pack 1. When I have some spare time I will re install that update and see it the problem reappears. Surprised no one else has had this issue.