Probably 50% of more of the time I try to connect to my unraid box from my Win7 machine, the browser does not find it when i type tower/.  Yet if I enter the IP address, it locates it just fine.

 

Would anyone know what would the cause for that?

I had a similar problem. when I first brought the server online. Rebooting the router seems to have cured it.

 

In Settings/SMB set the Local master to Yes.  Reboot the router and then all of your PCs.  This way the server will take over as the Master Browser.

 

Sometimes you can have issues in the Windows world addressing devices by their name, for example the Unraid server by //tower.  You need to make sure all of the devices in your network are in the same Workgroup.  You could also have master browser issues.  You can Google search Windows Master Browser for more background.  Scott Ogrin wrote a good utility LANscan that can give you some needed information very easily.  It will tell you what Workgroup every PC is in and which one is the master browser.  You can read more about it and download it here:  http://scottiestech.info/2009/02/14/how-to-determine-the-master-browser-in-a-windows-workgroup/

 

You just extract the program to its own folder.  It does not install any driver or portions of itself on your system It is a self contained program.  One thing I want to point out is that when you extract it, you need to put it on your c: drive and run it from there:  I put it at my root c:\ level.