a redux on my earlier epistle. Found a laptop in a control room that had an old lmhosts and host file added at some point pointing to the old IP of the samba server. It exhibited the same behavior (wouldn't connect and the 'helpful' windows error message said 'network problem') I 'fixed' the lmhost (and a host file as well) and all was well. Nasty business I'd say - what started out as an attempt to 'help' browsing' came back to haunt me later. And be careful, it's not just lmhosts but also there could be a host file in \Windows directory. So, feeling just a wee bit smarter - and earnestly hoping some poor soul may benefit from my error... Rich Parker Director of Engineering Vermont Public Radio