Hey Negative, that's brilliant! I've seen comments several times (elsewhere) that it's not possible to search and replace using batch but clearly it is.

The technique that I'm trying now is:

1. net view |find "\\" > list.txt

then

2. BatchSubstitute.bat \\ "" > list2.txt

my next step will be to use list2.txt in a for loop to step through and ping the "pure" computer names then I guess the arp table can be interrogated (again, via batch) to return the LAN computers IP addresses.