Windows Workgroup computers drop off and back on line (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Orr]

I have a secure wireless g network in my home. I have four computers currently sharing the network: three desktops (2 wireless, 1 wired) and one laptop (wireless). When everything is up and going, it's great.

However, I am having issues with different stations dropping on and off the network intermittently. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. What's interesting is that none of them lose the internet connectivity, only speaking to the other computers.

Has anyone run into this? The laptop is the only one that is either put in standby or shutdown (it travels between the house and my wife's work)

Thanks in advance.

 

[Paul Padilla]

Without a server of some kind in place, Windows 2000 and XP machines can frequently fight to become what's known as the master browser on the network...the machine that is responsible for maintaining the list of computers in your workgroup. Look in the event viewer in each machine for something that looks like this.

Event Type:Error
Event Source:BROWSER
Event Category:None
Event ID:8009
Date:3/21/2006
Time:7:37:00 AM
User:N/A
Computer:[Computer Name]
Description:
The browser was unable to promote itself to master browser. The computer that currently believes it is the master browser is [Computer Name].

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 34 00 00 00 4...

Designate one computer that is most likely to be on and available the most to be the master browser by stopping and disabling the Computer Browser service on the remaining machines. As you've seen, this issue doesn't affect connectivity to the Internet and making these changes won't affect that. The list of computers should actually come up much faster with the power struggle put to rest.

 

[Stephen Orr]

I have several of these errors reported.

Where do I find this computer browser service to disable it?

 

[Paul Padilla]

Like everything in Windows, there are several ways, but I will generally right click "My Computer" and choose "Manage". This actually gives you access to a number of management tools including the event viewer, device manager, defrag, etc.

• When the console comes up, expand "Services and Applications" in the left pane. Now highlight "Services".
  
  In the list of services on the right, double click "Computer Browser"
  
  On the "general" tab click "Stop"
  
  Once the service stops, click the dropdown box under "Startup Type:" and change it to disabled. This will prevent it from starting up again the next time you reboot.
  
  Click OK and close "Computer Management"

That's it. It's not necessary to reboot. Just observe over the next few days whether the machines still drop off and check the event viewer periodically (this is a good practice anyway) for the browser error.

Edit...the list of services are actually on the right.

 

[Stephen Orr]

Thanks. I think this will fix a problem I having with our church computers, also.

 

[Stephen Orr]

Thanks again to Paul. I followed the above advice and now everything is working like a charm.

 

[Paul Padilla]

Excellent...Glad to help.