Server 2012 Network Not Showing All Devices

Question

I am evaluating Windows Server 2012 Essentials. I have a variety of computers on my subnet, but not all of them are showing up under the NETWORK section of Explorer on the server.

Several Windows 7 computers are showing up, but my Windows XP computers are not. Nor is my Windows Home Server. Nor are a few other NETBIOS compatible devices that are on the network (and do show up in the NETWORK section of Explorer on the other computers).

I have Network Discovery turned on. I can't seem to figure out why the list of computers is incomplete under Windows Server 2012.

Solution

Got it. Computer Browser service was off by default on Windows Server 2012 Essentials. Not sure why it showed some computers and not others. But anyhow, I also flushed the arp cache and it seems to be working right now

Comments

[Dan]

Serious question, what are you trying to do? I mean, I've been doing Pro IT for 10 years and I don't think I've ever used that functionality.

[Ryan Ries]

I cringe to even get in to this discussion, but who is the master browser on your NetBIOS network?

[joeqwerty]

I hate to be negative but I agree with Dan. I'm at a loss to understand how this has any relevance to managing or using a Windows based network. If you're relying on My Network Places or Network Neighborhood to provide some useful functionality to you and your users then you're doing it wrong as far as I'm concerned.

[Bth]

It's a matter of making sure everything is set up correctly. It makes no sense to me that I would be getting a partial list of my network on a new Windows 2012 server. I use Windows explorer constantly moving files between computers on my network so its perfectly relevant in my case. Googling about I found others complaining of the same problem in small and large networks, but haven't come across a solution yet. It seems like Win 2012 server takes over as master browser when there are other older servers on the network, but it doesn't show all of the computers on the network.