I can't see my unraid tower in my laptop network (running windows7). Does anyone know if i need to tweak any settings on my laptop for it to recognize the unraid box?

Are they in the same workgroup?

No idea if they are in the same workgroup. I have two windows7 laptop and they both appear in the network (didn't do anything special to make them appear in the network). Unraid tower is not visible.

See here to check on your windows 7 workgroup name:

 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/51711-workgroup-name-view-change.html

 

To set the workgroup name in unRAID:

 

http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Manual#Workgroup

 

When installing windows the workgroup name is choosen, "WORKGROUP" used to be the standard, now it is "MSHOME".

Actually my network is called WORKGROUP. I changed my tower network to point to "WORKGROUP". It was looking for MSHOME before. After rebooting my tower and laptop, the tower is still not visible on the network.

you could try to add ip + name to the localhost file.

 

Are you running an 3rd party firewall (on the laptop) that blocks port 139 (zonealarm block like crazy)

i have added the ip address to the local host file on my laptop. this allowed me to access tower through webpage (using \\tower instead of \\ipaddress). it doesn't help with making the tower visible on the network.

 

 

i have windows firewall running.

Did you t ry to refresh the network page?  On my computer it tends to disappear if not accessed in some time.  But either double-clicking on Network or pressing the refresh arrows will bring it up.  It does take some time, 30-40 seconds to refresh.  I think that might depend on how many Network places/devices you have.

i have rebooted all machines and tried refreshing the network multiple times. Still doesn't work.

If you go to Control Panel, Networks and Internet, Network and Sharing, is your active network set to home, public or unidentified?  I had a problem with mine being unidentified. Compare to the one that is working.