Ok I have done two more things:
1) I have formatted and reinstalled winows 8.1 64bit. Result: no change. From just the fresh installation I am still experiencing the same problem
2) I have replaced the network switches on the network. Result: no change. Everything is now gigabit so I guess that...
I have been using network shares on my home network for a while but as of yesterday I have no longer been able to access them via their name (IP still works fine). This would not be a problem but things like Win8 File Hisotry uses the NAME of the device (e.g., my NAS) and not the IP for making...