Cannot view Windows Computers in Finder

Have you set Finder to view Shares?
Finder > Preferences > Sidebar

akapaul said:

Yes - that option is checked.

As a matter of fact, when I was staying in a hotel for business, I was able to see people's computers in the Finder. One person even had shared files! Talk about being unsecured!

Click to expand...

Ha! This reminds me of this hotel I stayed in two months ago, and I had iTunes open, and someone on the same network didn't realise that the Limewire folder on a computer is, by default, shared between computers. Just curiously, I clicked on their Limewire folder that had appeared under "Shared" in iTunes, only to find all sorts of pornographic videos...backed out of there pretty quick! Gave me many 'lol's.

Have you tried contacting the Windows computers with your Mac via Connect To Server (Cmd+K) and the IP addresses of the Windows machines?

After that, they should show in the sidebar.

I know, this is not the same, but maybe one connection will fix it.

I once was in an open wi-fi network, and I could see Windows shares, and I only had File Sharing on. It could be something on the Windows side.

I'm sorry, but there is nothing more (if that is even more) for me to add.

spinnerlys said:

Have you tried contacting the Windows computers with your Mac via Connect To Server (Cmd+K) and the IP addresses of the Windows machines?

After that, they should show in the sidebar.

I know, this is not the same, but maybe one connection will fix it.

I once was in an open wi-fi network, and I could see Windows shares, and I only had File Sharing on. It could be something on the Windows side.

I'm sorry, but there is nothing more (if that is even more) for me to add.

Click to expand...

This is what I do. I just save the IP Addresses in the connect to server dialog. In My Network Places on the Windows computers I type the workgroup and computer name in the address bar. By the way you need to type in the Samba address for the Windows computers. If you just type 192.168.x.x it will try to connect via appletalk (afp) instead type smb://192.168.x.x

For some reason network browsing stopped functioning properly on my network. If I did not type this info manually, in Windows I would instead have to go to configure TCP/IP and disable then re-enable Netbios. Which is too much of a pain.

The problem seems to be caused by my router but factory resets failed to correct this. I have also run full network resets in Windows but this does not fix it, i.e. 'netsh int ip reset c:\reset.log' and 'netsh winsock reset catalog'. It also is not a Firewall problem as my firewall is set up to allow my networks ip range but I tried disabling the firewall's to the same result.