I have Bitdefender Total Security 2019 installed on two Win7 desktop machines (DFW and Z170), each one configured as a Windows Media Center HTPC. Both machines contain a Ceton TV tuner card, which uses a driver based on TCPIP (i.e. the TV tuner card has an IP address of 192.168.200.1), so it looks like a "network". Both desktop machines are ethernet-cable wired-connected to my Netgear router.
For some reason (which I attribute to Bitdefender Firewall, perhaps) when I open Windows Explorer on the DFW machine, only the other Z170 desktop machine appears initially presented. Then the address bar fuel-gauge begins to "fill" with green from left to right, and eventually finishes. But when it is finished, it is still only the other Z170 desktop that is shown there. The DFW machine itself is NOT SHOWN in its own Windows Explorer "Network" object, although it should be! This of course is incorrect, as everything on both of the machines is fully shared to network access.
In contrast, if I do the same thing on the Z170 machine and Open Windows Explorer, again only the other DFW desktop machine appears initially presented. Once again the address bar fuel-gauge begins to "fill" with green from left to right, and eventually finishes. But this time when it is finished now BOTH the other DFW machine as well as the Z170 machine itself appear in the "Network" object, exactly as it should be.
Bitdefender was installed identically on both of these Win7 Pro x64 machines, both of which are hardware-configured almost identically. DFW is a Lenovo M910t Skylake-based i7-6700 machine, and Z170 is a homebuilt ASUS-based Z170-Deluxe i7-6700 machine. Both machines contain Ceton TV tuner cards in them.
Why is DFW "invisible on the network" to DFW itself while being able to "see Z170", whereas both Z170 and DFW are "visible on the network" to Z170 itself?
Note that there are no mapped network drive letters between the two machines, although all drives are "shared" with "full access". Also, every drive on one machine is perfectly and fully accessible to the other machine using network designations like \\DFW (from Z170) and \\Z170 (from DFW).
I attribute this anomaly to Bitdefender and its Firewall, as I never had this mysterious symptom when previously running Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Premium. Is there something I should do in the configuration for Bitdefender, and/or Firewall, to overcome this? Why only on DFW? What is the relevant setting I should examine to see if the two machines are actually configured identically as far as Bitdefender and/or Firewall is concerned?
