I just sent an email to microsoft about this issue but i
get the feeling they will not answer.

Ever heard of thius patch? Q828035 which patches
messenger service?

Ever since i upplied it, it caused all my xp machines to
have a very unstable messenger service.
At first it seemed random. Somtimes i receive net send
messeges fine, other time i get "message alias could not
be found on the network etc.."

So lets say i'm trying to send a message form a ADOLPH to
SONY.
from adolph: net send sony hello

This doesn't work even though i can ping sony with no
problem. On sony, i make sure the messenger service is
running.

To be able to receive messeges on sony i have to:
net stop messenger
net start messenger
now, i can reveice net send messeges on sony.

Okay, i just found out what triggered it. Sony is the
computer which i'm having the most problem with after
this patch. It's a laptop on DHCP. Adolph rarely gets
this problem. It's a desktop on static IP.

I can easly duplicate this messenger faliur on sony by:
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

After i do this, i cannot receive net send messeges. Look
at this:

nbtstat -n

NetBIOS Local Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
SONY <00> UNIQUE Registered
SONY <20> UNIQUE Registered
HOME <00> GROUP Registered
HOME <1E> GROUP Registered

Notice no entries like SONY <03> etc....
The <03> shows that the messenger service is attached to
that name.
(in this case i can also try "net name hellothere" and it
says successfull, but it doesn't show up on nbtstat -n)

Now, to fix: retsart messenger and then:
nbtstat -n

Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.15] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Local Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
SONY <00> UNIQUE Registered
SONY <20> UNIQUE Registered
HOME <00> GROUP Registered
HOME <1E> GROUP Registered
SONY <03> UNIQUE Registered
SONY$ <03> UNIQUE Registered
NOAMKRIEF <03> UNIQUE Registered

Notice all the <03>. Now the messenger service works.

I can duplicate this problem on the desktop too when i
swicth it to dhcp.

Can someone give me some input?
would someone try this on their "XP HOME" machine?
PS - uninstalling that patch does not fix the problem
thanks
Noam

Don't have the solution to your problem but did want to mention that leaving NetBIOS enabled on your PC makes you highly susceptible to exploiters (why call them hackers, they're simply attacking known exploits). Although changing the default pass helps, someone with a more extensive user/pass list can easily get into your PC through NetBIOS and take over the machine. Just my 2 cents though. ;)

thanks. but netbios is a non-routable protocol so i'm not worried. I'm behind a router.
no-one can map to my computer by \\computername
That's impossible.
They would have to \\myipaddress which is a joke since i'm behind a router and most ISP's block those ports anyway.

420, can you do me a favor and test that messenger?
make sure you're on dhcp, release then renew....

then look at the nbtstat -n

do you see "computername <03>" entries at all?
now restart messenger service and do the nbtstat -n again

thanks 420!
noam