14 DAY TRIAL // With Service Pack 1, Microsoft provided fixes for the vast majority of the issues that have now became associated by default with Windows Vista RTM. But softening the rough edges of Vista is not enough, as there are scenarios in which the problems reported by end users cannot be blamed specifically on the latest Windows client. Case in point: the failure of the Vista Network Map to identify correctly and display computers running Windows XP throughout a network. Vista's Network Map feature is based on the operating system's capabilities to effectively build a diagram of all the computers and devices on a network, but leaving XP machines out was not part of the original plan, a situation which has been rectified with the release of Service Pack 3.
"This problem occurs if the Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder component is not installed on the Windows XP-based computer. Network Map in Windows Vista makes network diagrams of the connections between network devices that can be used to troubleshoot connectivity problems. Network Map uses a discovery protocol called Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) that queries other devices on the network to determine how the network is organized," Microsoft revealed.
Microsoft built the components implementing the LLTD protocol into Windows Vista by default and, in this context, the operating system needed to communicate accurately with all the devices on the network. Other Vista computers represented no problems, as they included a discovery protocol designed to help put together the Network Map. But the same was not the case for the 32-bit version of Windows XP SP2. Without the discovery protocol enabled, XP SP2 machines could not handle the mapping requests coming from Vista machines.
Initially, Microsoft made available a hotfix which delivered the LLTD Responder component to XP operating systems. Now, following the releases of Vista SP1 and XP SP3, the Network Map capabilities of the latest Windows platform can also accommodate XP. This is because of Windows XP SP3 which includes by default the LLTD Responder component.
Windows XP SP3 is available for download here. Windows Vista SP1 is available for download here.