What does Windows 7 'Diagnose Network' actually do?

I have a Linux guest virtual machine under VirtualBox, on Windows 7 Professional, which exports its disk as a Samba share.

When I do connect to SHARENAME after booting, though, while the share does appear, and the files are there, they are greyed out with a fat grey "X" overlaid. If I click on any of them (file or folder), I'm informed that the item is not available and Windows suggests I run a Diagnose Network.

If I choose not to, and cancel, nothing happens; the share remains unavailable for up to ten minutes, after which it'll stabilize and start working for no apparent reason. During this ungrace time, connecting to the IP address, restarting Samba, twiddling with NET.EXE from command line, etc., all avail nothing.

If I accept, the Diagnose Network applet starts (doh), and after four or five seconds it reports that nothing is wrong. And it's right: because just an instant before it terminates, the icons become fully visible and the X overlay disappears. Nothing's wrong, but that's because it just got fixed!

So I deduce that Windows Diagnostics does something without even being aware it's doing it, to the point that it uncharacteristically doesn't even boast of having solved anything.

I'd therefore very much like to be able to run this something, whatever it is, directly from a shell script, instead of having to run the tiresome connect-doesntwork!-wannadiagnose?-yesdamnyoureyes-nothingwrongyouninny gauntlet. Or having to wait ten minutes before being able to do anything.

But what is it that Windows Diagnostics does?

Or equivalently, is there a way of making the share become "available", whatever this means?

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