How to Disable the Computer Browser Service Throughout a Domain

This article describes the set of batch files that you can run from a central location to stop and disable the Computer Browser service on all Windows NT Workstations and Windows NT-based member servers in a domain.

In addition to three batch files, you need the following utilities from the Windows NT Server Resource Kit:

• Netdom.exe
• Nnetsvc.exe
• Rreg.exe

How to Stop the Computer Browser Service

1. Create a Member.bat, Stopbrow.bat, and Stopbrow2.bat batch file.

   Code for the Member.bat File

   @ECHO OFF
   NETDOM MEMBER > MEMBER.TXT
   FOR /F "skip=6 tokens=4" %%i IN (MEMBER.TXT) DO ECHO %%i >> SERVERS.TXT
   					

   Code for the Stopbrow.bat File

   @ECHO OFF
   FOR /F "tokens=1" %%i IN (SERVERS.TXT) DO call stopbrow2.bat %%i
   					

   Code for the Stopbrow2.bat File

   @echo off
   echo Processing computer %1 >> output.txt
   NETSVC /STOP %1 BROWSER >> output.txt
   REG UPDATE HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Start=4 %1 >> output.txt
   					

2. Place the three preceding batch files and resource kit utilities into a folder, and then place the folder on the computer that is to run the batch files. This computer must be a member of the domain where you want to disable the Computer Browser service.
3. Run the Member.bat file, which creates two text files: Member.txt and Servers.txt. The Servers.txt file includes a list of all of the workstations and member servers in the domain. This file can serve as the list of targets for the Stopbrow.bat batch file.
4. Run the Stopbrow.bat file. This file examines the list of computers that are listed in the Servers.txt file, and then calls the Stopbrow2.bat file to stop, and then disable the Computer Browser service on each computer. The results of this process are logged to the Output.txt file, which can be reviewed to determine the computers that had been successfully processed.

For additional information about automating tasks with batch files in Windows NT 4.0, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: