Browser Service Fails to Start or Stop Button Is Unavailable

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This article was previously published under Q189606

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SYMPTOMS

When starting the Browser Service, your computer may appear to stop responding (hang) and the following error message may occur:

Could not start the Computer Browser Service on \\SERVERNAME.
Error 2186: The service is not responding to the control function.

When you attempt to stop the Browser Service using the Services utility in Control Panel, the Stop button may be unavailable.

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This problem is caused by a race condition in the startup code in the browser. The Browser service has two tasks trying to report status to the Service Control Manager. The result is that the status of the Browser service gets set to an incorrect value.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

152734 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/152734/EN-US/ ) How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 4.

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