Workgroup not seeing each other

i have desktop, and two laptops, all of which go via a wireless thompson router to the internet. the desktop is connected to the router via a LAN cable. the two laptops are wireless enabled and they communicate with the routers via their respective inbuilt wifi cards.
all three are made part of the same workgroup "MSHOME", and are able to share files across the network that forms between the two laptops and my desktop.
the desktop is always on, and i sometimes turn either of the laptops on from time to time. when i turn either of the laptops on, it can see the shared folders on the desktop, and can copy files off it. but the desktop does not see the laptop. its only when i restart the desktop, then it sees the laptops, and i can share files between them.
what is going wrong?

You mean in the "network neighborhood"? I think there is an option somewhere in the registry that defines whether the hosts of the workgroup should be cached or refreshed on access demand. Also, from what they say, [code:1]NBTSTAT -r[/code:1] should force an update without rebooting.

However even though the host does not appear in the net. neighborhood, you should be able to directly access his shares (i.e. through explorer, file://HOST/), so you could also make a shortcut to the host directly, right?

hi nske, thanks for the suggestion, but i found out a different reason for it. my firewall has a list of trusted IP addresses on my desktop. for some reason, the list had the IP address of my laptops, but their subnet masks were missing. the moment i rectified the problem, the laptops immediatly came up on Network Neighbourhood!!!. the firewall config on my laptops did not lose the same info about my desktop. so they could always see and interact with my desktop.
thanks anyway....
take care

Ah quite an obscure problem, good thing you managed to find it!