Enable Network Discovery : Windows Server 2008 R2

Need to enable network discovery in Windows Server 2008 R2?

The Problem is that after you have enabled this it simple turns off again so you need to enable the following services. I changed the startup type to automatic.

Start the following services:

net start "DNS Client"
net start "Function Discovery Resource Publication"
net start "SSDP Discovery"
net start "UPnP Discovery"

You still may not see the contents of “network places” populate with all the computers across the network so you will need to “enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP” from the network card adapter properties.

Control Panel > Network Connections -> Right click Properties on network card -> Select TCP/IP Settings -> Click Properties -> Advanced -> WINS tab -> enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP

 

enable_netbios_over_tcpip

 

This is usually configured within DHCP for clients, however in my situation I was enabling this feature on a server, therefore a fixed IP address not pulled from DHCP.

 

Original note : http://www.edwardsd.co.uk/work/2011/05/enable-network-discovery-server-2008-r2/comment-page-1/