Hm, the problem is your workstations try to browse the lan and don't know who is out there. DNS is a good thing, but for TCP/IP Networking it is normally not needed, because you wil need the browselist or a lmhost file. For this you can: a) Make a lmhost file like in C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts.sam with all your machines listed and your workstations don't have to browse the lan. Copy this file to all workstations (XP: c:\winnt = c:\windows !!!). b) Build up a samba-server with wins-proxy enabled and use it as wins-server in your network setup. c) Use NetBEUI-protocoll for hostresolution (is it part of XP? I think they left it somewhere on the setup cd in an extra folder). d) Setup a Samba-server as PDC and he will do for you the browselist. Disadvantage is, that the clients (mostly XP,2000,NT) want to be masterbrowser and sometimes win elections, if os-level is not propper set in /etc/samba/smb.conf. b) is the fastest way I know. We use it for 90 Workstations in our LAN in a students residence. Philippe P.S.: Here is my global section of my samba wins-proxy: [global] # fake all windummies it is a w2k server :-) announce version = 5.0 browseable = no domain master = no share modes = yes socket options = SO_KEEPALIVE TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY wins support = yes max log size = 1000 preferred master = yes # !!! change x.x.x.x to your IP !!! # bind only one nic to samba (the internal one !!!) interfaces = x.x.x.x/255.255.255.0 socket address = x.x.x.x bind interfaces only = yes volume = Meister security = share # some simple "virus protection" veto files = /*.eml/*.nws/riched20.dll/*.{*}/*.rar/*.scr/*.exe/*.bat/ available = no server string = Serverkeller workgroup = WOHNHEIM local master = yes comment = Linux Box netbios name = Meister # I want to have logs for each machine log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m wins proxy = yes guest account = nobody os level = 33 guest only = yes load printers = no