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Computer Browser Service

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by danco1000

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I have always known to disable the Computer Browser service on workstations.
This is to prevent workstations from becoming master browsers and decrease network traffic.
For what reasons might one want to enable the computer browser service on workstations?
A collegue wants to turn it on and I don't.

5 replies

by smloftus

One reason is to allow a user to browse to shares on remote machines rather than type in the UNC path. You must disable the ability to become a master or backup browser in the "Registry".

by bburke

You can have the browsing on without any problems as long as you disable the ability for each machine to become master browser. If you have an NT box on the network it can act as master browser. The best instructions for settings browser options for all OS's is on Technet(www.microsoft.com/technet) search on the phrase: "configuring browser options for WinNT, Win95, and WFW"

The size of the network plays a factor too on a small network browsing doesn't matter too much as long as you're nottrying to use a slow networking OS (like Windows or Win95) as a server.

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