i run a small domestic network fot my flatmates, 5 windows xp boxes, 3 macs and my server /desktop pc which is gentooed.
My friend recientally got a new computer runnming XP sans SP2 - unfortuniatly even ithough the machen says its in the same workgroup as the other computers, it cant access my linux fileshare... all the others can.
It can see parts of the network, but not all... it recognises one of the other XP boxes but cant see anything besides the over all netbios network name.

i know this isnt technically much to do with linux, but i just cant think what the problem with his computer could be that it wont see a network that other systems with an identicale operating system can see and access.

Do you get an error when you try to access the machine?

no... none of the xp systems have active fileshares (cus id only abuse them :P )However...
when clicking throu the network browser thing in XP it can detect the presence of the workgroup.. however double clicking on it causes the machene to hang.

i havent ruled out component failure so we are getting a new NIC, but it would be an ood component failure as www access, chat protocols and the like all work withought error.