how to force master browser in windows 7
Cannot see all computers in network map
Gabriel Clifton
Need more details, but usually you can only see the computers on your subnet only.
The browsing service for your network is managed only by the server computers on the network. You do not want to make your Windows 7 machine a master browser, as it won't help your situation anyway and may in fact cause browsing slowness for other users on the network. Do you have access to manage the server computers on your network?
ASKER
I have a peer to peek network with a workgroup consisting of three Windows 7 Pro computers and one XP Pro computer. I sometimes lose all computers on the Windows 7 computers when displaying the network under the My Computer icon. Restarting the computers will fix the problem. The Windows XP computer will display all the computers in the network neighborhood fine. By using a browser utility tool, one of the Windows 7 computer, that is barely used, is the master browser. I want to force the master browser on another Windows 7 computer because it is on most of the time and have shared folders. I searched the internet on how to do this but come up empty. There are a lot of information for the Windows XP and 2000 versions but nothing for Windows 7. For now, I just want to know how to force the master browser on a Windows 7 computer and make the other computer a backup browser.
ASKER
I just need information on how to force master browser on a Windows 7 computer, make another computer a backup browser, and disable all other computers.
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ASKER
Great, this is what I'm looking for. What about making a Windows 7 computer a backup browser and how to disable the master browser service on other Win7 computers?
Any computer that has the IsMasterBrowser set to 1 will force an election on the network. The systems that have that setting will always share the master browser role. I doubt that you really need 2 master browsers on such a small network. The old wisdom was that you should have a master browser for every 30 or so computers, but I don't know if that still applies. Anyway it's more than you have. The other way to control this is to stop and disable the Computer Browser service on any machines that you want to PREVENT becoming a master browser.
ASKER
Thank you for your quick response and help. blueit