Patent ID: 7487136

Claim:
A share discovery system, comprising: a computer configured to conduct a device name query by addressing and sending one or more packets using a predetermined broadcast Internet Protocol (IP) address, the presence of the predetermined broadcast IP address in the packets to cause remote devices located on a Local Area Network (LAN) to provide their IP address responsive to observing the predetermined broadcast IP address contained in the packets; the computer configured to correlate received responses to the sent packets to discover the IP addresses of the remote devices; the computer configured to address and send a priori mount requests to the remote devices using the discovered IP addresses, the a priori mount requests to identify available share folders or files located on the remote devices; the computer configured to assemble a list of the remote devices and available share folders or files located on the remote devices, the list assembled using information obtained using the a priori mount requests; and the computer configured to mount one or more of the listed share folders or files according to user selections such that the mounted share folders or files are not downloaded during the mounting but are made utilizable as if stored locally; wherein the device name query and the a priori mount requests are sent, and the responses received, without going through an intermediary master browser; wherein the device name query is conducted using a NetBIOS name query.