We have been using a Win2k configuration of about 10 PCs. One system is a Win2K server with 10 client licenses & the rest are all Win2K professional licenses. The network is organised into a workgroup. Each of the PC has 2 NICs. One of them is a propreitary interface card with address 172.16.XXX.XXX & subnet of 255.255.0.0 . The ethernet NIC is intel make & has address 172.16.XXX.XXX & subnet of 255.255.0.0 Now we are facing a problem. ALl of a sudden on one of the PCs we get a error message Message: The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer computer name that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on transport name. The master browser is stopping or an election is being forced. Event Information: Event ID: 8003 Event Source: Browser Event Type: Error Event Log: System This results in the failure of computer browser service on the client computer. All network & file sharing related applications fail. THe microsoft support site offers the following explaination : Explanation: The subnet mask of the Windows 2000 client computer is incorrect or is different from the primary domain controller. The client computer has attempted to promote itself to the master browser of the subnet and has failed because only one computer in a domain can be running as the master browser. User Action: Change the TCP/IP protocol configuration to the correct subnet mask. We have ensured that the subet mask of all the stations on the network is the same. Moreover similar configurations have been working with WinNT instead of Win2K. Has anyone faced this problem before or could anyone suggest a work around ? Currently the only remedy is to restart the client station reporting this error.

Try a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 ?? Or else you can go in and tell the workstations not to function as master browsers, which would only leave your servers as browsers. This could also be related to them having 2 NICs (which I don't understand why you have two).....