ok all the services you mentioned (and are mentioned on MS sites) are automatic and running/started, workgroup's the same on every machine i have... still things do not work how they are supposed to...
pinging works with both ip and pc names, with either firewall on or off (i'm using windows vista firewall, i have another in the router - built-in one but have not changed the settings there).
when i change the vista firewall to off i have the network discovery automatically set to on and i can't switch it off, plus any attempt to do so results in throwing a message "Incorrect function" and nothing works... switching firewall back on leads to turning every option under network sharing center to off with no possibility to set them on again.
even with firewall set to off i cannot browse the network (even though it's set to private network) neighbourhood - at least it's still empty (only the router is visible).
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/usi...d/default.mspx -> this test says there is nothing wrong with my connection (well, internet works well, it's the lan that's problematic). simply network map is simply not working... and as i said earlier - no "apply" button under network and sharing center works. i even opened the ports listed on
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...45f331033.mspx but with no expected result ;(
the built-in diagnose and repair function does nothing ;(