PCTips Box

Windows Vista has a useful networking tool, called Network Map, which displays a graphical view of all of the computers and devices connected to a network, and how they are interconnected, and it works just fine when all of the PCs concerned are running Vista. The trouble is, in the early days at least, many networks will be mixed and running mostly XP machines and that’s the problem. XP computers won’t show up in Vista’s Network map because they lack a component called a Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) responder. If this careless omission has been bugging you – and why wouldn’t it — then you‘ll be pleased to know Microsoft has now released a fix in the form of a download, which if installed on your XP computers, makes them magically visible to Vista. Get it now, while it’s hot…

The new Network Map in Windows Vista allows you to easily create a map of all computers on your network and see how they are connected. This works by using the Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) protocol that is only part of Windows Vista.

To help users of mixed environments of both Windows Vista and Windows XP, Microsoft has released the Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder for Windows XP. This will make your Windows XP computers show up in the Network Map in Windows Vista. (more…)