Creat Vista Network Map

[O'Brian]

Hello. I have a Vista system at my office, and i heard many time a work Network Map. What is this actually and how it works ? Can i make a network map in my vista system ?

[Anand D.]

The network map is a very cool new feature in Windows that allows you to visually see on your network is connected together. It is part of the Networking & Sharing Center. When you've got a crowded home office network chock full of PCs and other devices, keeping track of everything connected to it can be a quite a challenge. Vista's Network Map feature was designed to address this problem by providing a bird's-eye, graphical view of the network that shows connected devices and how they're linked to each other.Although it can be a useful tool, Network Map is also an imperfect one, because it may provide incomplete or hard-to-decipher information.

You can access the Network Map from within the Network and Sharing Center. Just click the "View Full Map" link in the upper right corner. A new window will open, and within a few seconds it will display icons representing the various network devices found.It can be used to view either basic or detailed network info on a device. Hovering the mouse cursor over most device icons will quickly display the device's name along with its IP and MAC addresses. If the device is a PC, a double- or right-click on its icon will let you view its shared resources. Right-clicking will reveal options labeled Open and Explore, but they both do pretty much the same thing.

The network map organizes its device icons to illustrate the network's topography, showing how different devices are connected to the network and to each other. Devices connected by a solid double line have wired links, while broken double lines indicate wireless ones.Vista's network map can be a convenient way to get information on major network devices like PCs, routers, and access points.

Lets take a look at this cool new tool and how it can be created:-

1. Click on your start menu and right click on Networking and choose Properties

2. Right above your graphical mini map you will see the words “View Full Map”, go ahead and click on that.

3. Once you click it another Window will pop up and you will see a message “Windows is creating a network map”

4. Next you will see a topology layout of your network.

[O'Brian]

Well. Thats a good information. But does Vista network map shows Xp Windows as well in its map?

[labman]

When you run Network Map on a Windows Vista-based computer, computers that are running Windows XP do not appear on the network diagram.

This is because the Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder component is not installed on the Windows XP-based computer. To see the XP windows on vista map, LLTD must be installed in XP.