Windows – Network Topology Discovery – Windows 7 Via GPO

group-policywindowswindows-server-2008

I wish to enable Network Discovery on my network (For various reasons) I need to apply this via GPO due to the nature of our setup. This is on a Windows 2008 R2 Domain with Windows 7/XP Clients.

I have tried to enable this in the GPO and it shows the below;

> Network/Link-Layer Topology Discovery Policy  Setting Comment Turn on
> Mapper I/O (LLTDIO) driver Enabled     Allow operation while in
> domain    Enabled Allow operation while in public network Disabled
> Prohibit operation while in private network   Disabled
> 
> Policy    Setting Comment Turn on Responder (RSPNDR) driver Enabled   
> Allow operation while in domain   Enabled Allow operation while in
> public network    Disabled Prohibit operation while in private
> network   Disabled

But when logging onto the clients this isn’t applying. I have Run RSOP and the output isn’t showing that this has applied as well. Any comments would be appreciated

Best Answer

What feature are you trying to enable with "Network Topology Discovery"?

This technology allows you to draw a graph of the network, but the button to show the network graph is only visible on Private networks, not Domain. I think it is intended for domestic/SMB usage, rather than enterprise, hence why it is hidden on domains (which can be quite a bit larger and discovery could take an extremely long time).

If you are trying to make it so that you can see other PCs in the "Network neighborhood" this is not the right setting.

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