Can somebody please educate me on the subject of Master Browsers, preferrably in simple terms because it all makes my brain hurt (and it already hurts after a heavy Friday night !). My problem is that I have a home network consisting of a PC and 2 laptops all running XP Pro and networked through a wireless DSL router (Linksys WAG54G). The PC is hardwired to the router and the laptops run over the wireless link. So far so good, and all can access the internet without problems however the machines often seem to have difficulty talking to each other, especially when one has been turned off. This usually sorts itself out after a short while which is why I suspect this is down to them squabbling over who is boss. The PC is generally switched off overnight although the laptops, or at least one of them, often stays on so is this causing it to become MB ? This laptop is also usually set to go into standby after completing various tasks so am I right in assuming that if the PC is then switched on it becomes MB and then has a fight with the laptop when that's brought out of standby ? My question really is how should I configure the MB settings on these 3 machines to prevent this, ON/OFF/AUTO ? I guess in an ideal world the PC would be MB and left on all the time, or at least powered up first, but I don't really want to do this.

Why not? In the long run it's less wear and tear on the PC. In the long run, if you set your PC to power down the monitor and hard drive after a period of time, leaving it like this not only won't hurt it. It will cure your MB problem and extend the life of the PC as well.

Thanks for the reply Curt R but there can be many reasons for not wanting to leave a PC on 24/7 other than the obvious and in this particular circumstance I do have other reasons. What I need is to understand what is going on in order to make an informed decision as to how to work around, as per my question.

Understanding the Master Browser feature in MS Windows is like understanding Quantum Physics. It seems the MB is typically the senior most machine, which is XP Pro. Since all your machines are XP Pro they will constantly bicker. Sometimes a new machine introduced to the system will send out a MB request and the other MB will back down, but sometimes it will say screw you I'M the MB. Why this happens is anybody's guess. You will probably have to pay very close attention to the Event Viewer on all your machines to find out which one is the back downer and turn the MB off. Who knows? -DF

Try this site for help on the explain part I also had an NT Server and XP Pro WS causing these errors I edited the registry setting in XP Pro search for "MaintainServerList" the potential values are found here http://www.pureperformance.com/js/showtip.asp?id=111 A good site for explanation and links is http://www.buildorbuy.org/browsemaster.html Good Luck