Mac OS X uses Bonjour (multicast DNS) to publish shared folder service to local network. And, newly joined Mac OS X laptop automatically find shared storages very quickly and easily.
In case of Windows, I think NetBIOS BROWSE is used to publish shared folder service to Windows local network. But, from time to time, shared storage is not shown in Windows network browser.
Could you please explain how Windows can publish it's shared folder to local network? Any way to improve it?
"Publishing" and mDNS is a bad idea in general. Yes it's very useful for completely unmanaged networks and people who want things to "just work" without regard for security, reliability, maintainability, administration, or any of the 'tools' Professional Administrators use to ensure available, productive, scalable systems.
Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 come with Link Layer Discovery Protocol built in for mapping the local network. The protocol is sufficient for finding other enabled devices on a network and is used as a last resort, after every protocol that has the slightest shred of reliability or manageability.
