I think the REAL problem with this is that these errors get flagged as severe. I think that is very misleading. The resource architecture requires a machien to maintain a list of available resources (the browse master). Since Win2k can be used in a peer-to-peer netwrok as well as client-server, the workstations need the capability to become this master browser. If the workstation fails to see the 'heartbeat' fromt he master browser, it can only presume that it has gone offline, and therefore initiates the election process. Of course, it will loose, assuming the presence of a PDC or BDC on the network, both of which have higher priority. Somethign worth logging as a critical error? Probably not.
The real cause in most cases seems to be network congestion. Perhaps there should be more retires before the assumption is made that the browser master really is offline. I rarely if ever see browser election errors logged on smaller networks. The larger the network, the more error I see. I don't think that's a coincidence. Perhaps breaking the network up into more but smaller collision domains (I'm assuming Ethernet here) is the solution. But excess latency in switches might make the problem worse rather than better.
Of course, it wouldn't hurt MS to put in a mechanism like Citrix has done for the ICA Browser they use, wherein you can define roles WITHOUT editing the registry. It's in 95 and 98, why is it lacking in NT and 2000? Of course, that would require more awarenes on the part of the network administrators, so that they can optimize the performance/reliability tradeoffs.
Randy
>>Bill
>
>I've got two kinds of errors in my error logs. The first is one which says that my brower is being forced to become a master brower, but the attempt fails.
>The second is my browser trying to gain Master Browser status, but fails.
>There are about 175 Master Browser related issues. I'm at home and don't recall the exact messages that are in the error log, but here is one related to the problem I had.
>
>
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q227/4/19.asp?id=Q227419&sd=GN&fr=0&ln=EN-US
