It sounds like a small environment (but not too sure from your details)
so is there any reason you couldn't do \\IPADDRESS\sharename instead of
hostname as a workaround?  To facilitate, maybe you could use static
mappings in the mono dhcp server.  Just a thought....

-----Original Message-----
From: Lee Sharp [mailto:leesharp at hal dash pc dot org] 
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 10:20 PM
To: m0n0wall at lists dot m0n0 dot ch
Subject: Re: [m0n0wall] Must ping before connecting to share!

From: "Lee B." <leeb00 at gmail dot com>

> Ok, here's an odd one... Not sure if its a M0n0wall problem or not 
> (home
> network: Cablemodem-> m0n0wall_1.22-> several_computers_on_lan)

> One Windows XP machine often won't connect to shares on other machines

> that are on the LAN.(connect network drive \\hostname\sharename) BUT 
> if I
> *ping* the IP of that machine (the PC with the share I'm trying to 
> connect to), and THEN connect to the share using the hostname, it 
> works every time!

> So, I can always connect to the shares using the IP, and I can connect

> using the netbios name IF I ping the server first. Anyone heard of 
> this before?

Yep.  When you ping it, you both do a NetBIOS name exchange.  Chalk it
up to Microsoft designing NetBIOS naming while drinking heavily.  You
need a wins server, a lmhost file, or to "register DHCP leases" in the
m0n0wall dns forwarder.

                        Lee