Vista's new network pictorial Map Diagrams Vista Features Discuss Vista's new network pictorial Map Diagrams in the Windows Vista forums; OK I have a small office and I was going to test Vista’s new “Network Mapping” feature (Not Network Neighborhood see the Vista "Network and Sharing Center" ...

[mrmmills]

OK I have a small office and I was going to test Vista’s new “Network Mapping” feature (Not Network Neighborhood see the Vista "Network and Sharing Center" example at http://www.sunbelt-software.com/ihs/...mallnetmap.jpg )



The Network and Sharing Center can use LLDP (Logical Link Discovery Protocol) to render a pictorial representation of your network complete with all PC's, switches, routers, and modems on a network. Pretty cool! However - I haven’t been able to get it to work yet.

I ran the LLTD responder (see first hyperlink below) on my XPSP2 pc and rebooted – there does not appear to be a way to verify it is installed correctly. Nothing shows under the “local area connection” properties to “prove” it’s installed.

Per Instructions from web posts I changed the default NIC settings to allow Netbios over TCPIP instead of DHCP.

I also went in and created and applied a GPO that allows LLTD.(see 3rd hyperlink below, this link has some good GPO screenshots)

Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder (KB922120)
http://blogs.msdn.com/wndp/archive/2..._5F00_map.aspx

Network Map Does Not Display Computers Running Windows XP
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window....mspx?mfr=true

How to Enable the Windows Vista Network Map
http://blogs.msdn.com/wndp/archive/2..._5F00_map.aspx
Vista GPO (Can only be seen on Vista Client running GPMC.msc) Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> Link-Layer Topology Discovery.

There doesn't seem to be too much info posted on the web for making Vista's LLDP work in a domain environment, I'm also trying to figure out how an admin would distribute the LLDP Responder to XP Clients - it is an ActiveX control off a web page and the not an exe or msi download, therefore I don't know how to distribute it via GPO? Any help would be appreciated .

Mark Mills
mark.mills@desktop-assistance.com

[felix8406]

Had you tried using Vista's Help and Support? Type Logical Link Discovery Protocol and it will provide you with plenty of information. Click Star > Help and Support

[mrmmills]

I went there although over 30 topics come up only 2 or 3 have to do with actual network discovery. From the help I did learn you have to have ICS enabled if you want to show the "gateway" icon. It also talked about IGDDC which I had never heard of... but the network map is still not working in my domain.

[crabby]

Do you mean not working AT ALL? Does it even show the connected devices at the bottom? ie, discovered but not placed on the map?

Post a snipping tool cut of the screen.

crabby

[mrmmills]

Okay, now here is that screen shot you requested.

LLDP.jpg

[crabby]

Could you click the 'FULL MAP' link and post that? As that is the area which details the information as shown in your first post.

crabby

[mrmmills]

My apologies for my delayed reply, I just got back from lunch. If I click on the "View Full Map" then I get the message "Windows cannot create a network map for the selected type of network connection".

The location type is "Domain".

I do have a GPo set to allow LLDP, and confirmed it was applied via GPResult. The actual registry keys are:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Enab leLLTDIO
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Allo wLLTDIOOnDomain
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Allo wLLTDIOOnPublicNet
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Proh ibitLLTDIOOnPrivateNet
and
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Enab leRspndr
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Allo wRspndrOnDomain
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Allo wRspndrOnPublicNet
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LLTD!Proh ibitRspndrOnPrivateNet

I originally thought this might be that my SMC Layer 2 VLAN switch wasn't configured for LLDP so I put my XP client (with the Responder) and one of my Vista PC's on a dumb Linksys Hub (not a switch) but they still don't see each other with LLDP. I'm going to take another Vista PC from our domain and see if what happens when I place it on the same Hub as the 1st Vista PC.

[mrmmills]

For those just trying to share out Vista with XP see the following two very comprehensive posts (they seem to have all the tricks and even registry keys to verify):

http://www.svabhinava.org/Dia-Gnosis...taXP-frame.php

http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/...&tf=0&pageid=0

[mrmmills]

I think I finally found the problem after posting this on 4 forums. Per http://forums.techarena.in/showthrea...=693277&page=2 several people had the same issue I did "Windows cannot create a network map for the selected type of network connection" when they had installed NVidia ethernet driver (v65.55).

Both of my Vista Machines are AMD 64 X2 PC's and the Asus motherboards are using NVidia Chipsets. I need to get back to some real work so I'm going to guess that my issue lies in having the NVidia driver installed. I looked at the NIC properties and the "Rollback Driver" button is grayed out so there appears to be no easy way to try a different driver right now.

Case closed - for now!

[crabby]

My Nvidia chipset works fine. I don't think I have the same network type though.

Its an odd problem.

Does it actually affect your network atall or is it just for aesthetics?

crabby