Although ED-PC can see all local machines, Vista says not connected

I conducted a little research into this situation and learned that this problem has persisted since Microsoft introduced SP1 for Vista — I guess I should be grateful it waited this long to bite one of my systems — and that there’s no easy fix available. I tried leaving, then rejoining my local workgroup, rebuilt my TCP/IP protocol stack, uninstalled then reinstalled my NIC driver — all to no avail. Looking over the various fixes others have attempted — see this discussion on the MSDN Forums entitled “Windows Vista – LAN working properly, but Vista says I’m not connected,” for example — I see I hit most of the high points. But since nobody else has been able to fix this, either I supposed I shouldn’t feel so bad.

Nonetheless, I can’t help it. It bugs me no end when things don’t work like they’re supposed to, and I can neither fix them nor figure out why or how they broke. Maybe that’s what keeps me banging my head against Vista after all these years, eh?