vm guest can't access host samba shares

[Roger Searle]

Hi, I can't figure this one out.  I have a feisty box running vmware 
server, and windows guest.  Feisty has some samba shares set up via 
webmin, and another (windows) box on the network can do all the expected 
things with those shares. 

Network is 192.168.1.0/24, each machine is using DHCP, addresses coming 
from a linksys wag54g router that is also the default gateway for each 
machine. 

All machines can ping google, and other machines by ip address.  The 
windows machines can ping each other by host name, so a degree of local 
name resolution is working.  The thing that is NOT working is that the 
windows vm guest can't  resolve the host machine - it can't ping it by 
hostname, returning "could not find host" (it CAN ping it by ip 
address), so no surprise that it can't acces the samba shares (where the 
"real" windows machine can).  Strangely, the vm guest does see the host 
machine name listed in the workgroup in "my network places" yet clicking 
it returns "\\gemini is not accessible. you might not have permission to 
use this network resource".

DNS server setting in the vm guest are always including the router's ip 
address, and it is using a bridged network card in vmware.  Usernames 
and passwords are consistent across machines. 

Can anyone suggest what I can look for? 

Cheers,
Roger