Workstation becomes invisible

[laserblazer]

We upgraded to Server 2012 and Windows 7 over Easter. All of the admin workstations were set up the same and are fine except for the Office Manager's. It has a colour printer connected and shared with two other workstations in the office. I get called down because they can't print. I can't ping the offending workstation but it can ping out. Taking it out of the domain and putting it back doesn't help but changing the computer's name does. It's now on its third name. I'm presuming a dns issue but I can't think what.

[MordyT]

When u ping it, does it resolve to the right name? how about pinging the IP? what about c$? check windows firewall?

[laserblazer]

When u ping it, does it resolve to the right name? how about pinging the IP? what about c$? check windows firewall?

 

When it works it does. I can see nothing in the firewall, it's exactly the same as the other workstations.

[squeeky]

this seems like the obvious symptom of windows firewall being broken. Completely turn it off temporarily and see if it magically fixes it. Im 90% sure this will fix it.

[laserblazer]

this seems like the obvious symptom of windows firewall being broken. Completely turn it off temporarily and see if it magically fixes it. Im 90% sure this will fix it.

 

You could have got away with 100%. The advanced settings snap in was showing an error. Stopping and restarting the service seems to have done the trick. Thanks.

[laserblazer]

This is still causing a bit of a problem because the firewall service is not starting automatically. Research tells me that it is probably because there is a third party firewall installed but I'm sure that's not the case. Has anyone any ideas?

[Garacesh]

Third party firewalls may very well disable the default Windows one. I know I've had it happen to my machine at home.

 

During my apprenticeship, one of the 'hands-on' tests at the College had symptoms exactly like this. One machine could ping the other, but vice verca was not possible. TL;DR, Subnet Mask configured wrongly. Unlikely, but only takes a minute to check.

The part about changing its name stumps me, though.