How to enable Vista’s Network Map for Domain Members

 17 Oct 2006 03:24:13 am

For those of you who have had a chance to play with Microsoft’s Windows Vista there is a handy new feature called the “Network Map”. Vista uses the Link Layer Topology Discovery protocol (LLTP), a layer 2 protocol that gathers information about neighboring devices to create (among other things) a top-down map of your network segment.

However this feature is disabled by default on domain member machines, reason being that if you had it enabled in the enterprise on every machine it could pose a security risk (and lets just face it, this isn’t exactly something I want enabled across the enterprise). However for your IT department or in smaller domains you may want to enable this feature. To do so you’ll need to make some quick group policy changes.

If you haven’t already create a GPO and link it to the OU that computer account(s) reside in. Click on “start” and in the search box (or a run dialog) type “MMC”. Click on “File” and “Add/Remove Snap-in…” and add the “Group Policy Management” snap-in to your console. Drill-down and edit the policy you wish to change and browse to Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Network>Link-Layer Topology Discovery. Here you will notice 2 policies, “Turn on Mapper I/O (LLTDIO) driver” and “Turn on Responder (RSPNDR) driver”. If you enable the mapper driver it will allow the client(s) to connect out over the network and look for other devices, if you enable the responder it will allow other machines to locate these client(s).

I do not recommend enabling functionality while on public networks.

Cheers,
Erik Szewczyk

Category : Active Directory | Posted By : Erik | Comments [0] | Trackbacks [0]