I just received my WDTV SMP unit yesterday and I spent several hours getting it to see my WHS 2011 server. It was able to see my desktop and HTPC just fine, but even after going through the various Youtube howtos online for setting up NTFS security settings and advanced sharing, it refused to see my server. It turns out my share settings were fine. The issue was that WHS 2011 must be setup as the “Master Browser”. I figured I would post the solution that worked for me in case others have the same issue and run across this post.
For some, this is already the case. For others, like myself, it required making a few changes on my WHS system. I found instructions to resolve this issue here.
- First, you want to enable the “Computer Browser” service on your WHS 2011 server
START>Administrative Tools>Services - Right click Computer Browser, select properties > select automatic from the “Start up Type” drop down list. Then start the service.
- Then, you need to make a registry tweak to ensure that your server is selected as the Master Browser
Start the registry editor (Start → Run → regedit.exe)
Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser \Parameters
Double click on MaintainServerList
Set to Yes
Click OK
Close the registry editor and reboot
- I also had to make the opposite changes on my other networked Windows PCs
I DISABLED the “Computer Browser” service on these machines, and changed the MaintainServerList key to “No”. You then must restart each machine for the changes to take affect.
After doing all this, the WDTV immediately saw my WHS 2011 server and all of its shares. I didn’t have to make any sharing or ownership modifications. I didn’t even have to restart the WDTV.
NOTE: You can check to see what machine is set as the “Master Browser” by downloading a simple script called “Lanscan”. You can download the script here.
Output will look like this:
