I'm having a strange (and persistent!) problem with pinging local machines on my network by name. I believe my machine (Windows 7 64-bit) is the only one having this issue. This is over a wireless connection.

As an example, consider a device on my network by the name of WDTVLiveHub. It's a Western Digital Live Hub (surprise!). If I go to my router's DHCP Client Table in the browser (my router is a WRT400N), I see this entry:

WDTVLiveHub 192.168.1.101

Great. So I try to ping that IP address:

ping 192.168.1.101

Pinging 192.168.1.101 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.101:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 14ms

OK, still looking good. Now I try to ping it by name:

ping WDTVLiveHub

Ping request could not find host WDTVLiveHub. Please check the name and try again.

From what I've read, this implies a problem with DNS servers and host name lookups. Interestingly, if I type the following:

pathping 192.168.1.101

I get this output:

Tracing route to WDTVLIVEHUB [192.168.1.101]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  0  Scotty [192.168.1.103]
  1  WDTVLIVEHUB [192.168.1.101]

Computing statistics for 25 seconds...
            Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
  0                                           Scotty [192.168.1.103]
                                1/ 100 =  1%   |
  1   12ms     1/ 100 =  1%     0/ 100 =  0%  WDTVLIVEHUB [192.168.1.101]

Trace complete.

Scotty is obviously the name of my local machine. So it's able to find the name somehow when I do that approach...

ipconfig /all shows the following under DNS servers:

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
                                       ***.***.***.***
                                       ***.***.***.***

Where the * represents the same DNS servers that show up in my router under DNS 1 and DNS 2 through the Internet.

For completeness, here's the whole output of ipconfig /all:

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Scotty
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : 
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 0C-EE-E6-D1-07-E8
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2002:d83a:31e5:1234:5592:398e:8968:43d1(Preferred) 
   Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : 2002:d83a:31e5:1234:ecce:2f79:72a5:5273(Preferred) 
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5592:398e:8968:43d1%26(Preferred) 
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.103(Preferred) 
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : September-17-12 11:05:57 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : September-18-12 11:05:57 PM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::200:ff:fe00:0%26
                                       192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 537718502
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-12-80-3D-D7-00-26-B9-0D-08-70
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
                                       ***.***.***.***
                                       ***.***.***.***
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter VirtualBox Host-Only Network:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-27-00-98-9A
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::b48a:916b:c0f:fb29%23(Preferred) 
   Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.251.41(Preferred) 
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 570949671
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-12-80-3D-D7-00-26-B9-0D-08-70
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 15:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{55899375-C31D-4173-A529-4427D63FD28B}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{64B8F35F-A6AB-4D6B-B1D5-DD95F57B1458}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Not sure exactly how to diagnose exactly what's going on... but the problem is really frustrating! The biggest problem is that my mapped network drives have to be done by IP, and then any time the router assigns new IP addresses to those devices, all of my network shares break again. Stinks!

Would love some assistance on possible solutions. I've tried all of this netsh catalog resetting and that didn't seem to fix anything at all. Would love an explanation of what's going wrong, too, rather than blindly resetting things!

Thanks!