Normally looking at data across the network is no problem, but sometimes strange things happen.
We had one system that was WinNT and another that was WinXP. Chemstation is supposed to know what type of file it is by the extension, if it has .MS at the end it knows it is a mass spec chromatogram file. On this setup, if you viewed the NT files on the XP computer while they were on the NT computer, the XP system would display them as if they were GC files, not MS files. If you copy the file from the NT to the XP, then it would open them correctly. Only difference in the file was its location.
Our Agilent sales rep visited one day with one of their Software Engineers, and I demonstrated the problem to him. He shook his head and said "That should be impossible". We never did figure out that problem.