Good job, glad to hear that you managed to resolve your problem.
Although I am not sure how or what DNS might have had to do with the actual problem, since typically workgroup environments aren't often using DNS locally to resolve anything and normally do not even have a DNS server present on their subnet but more likely a DNS forwarder (typically the router). Normally workgroups rely on WINS or more often NetBIOS to resolve netBIOS names (computer friendly names) to IP Addresses. DNS is used solely to resolve FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names) to IP Addresses and I wouldn't suspect that in a workgroup environment you have any FQDNs that need resolving.
Anyhow..... great you have it sorted out now.
Regards
Randy