Browser Registry Entries Changed in Windows XP SP2

To improve workstation performance, we change certain registry entries when building our workstations. In particular, we use a hack that prevents the workstations from maintaining the browse list. This means that the workstations don't participate in or force a browser election.

Throughout our deployment of XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), we were consistently getting an Event ID 8023 warning in the System Event Viewer. The event description read: The value for the parameter MaintainServerList to the browser service was illegal. This description provided an important clue to the problem.

The MaintainServerList registry entry is in the HKEY_LOCAL_
MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesBrowser
Parameters subkey. The hack we had been using set the MaintainServerList entry to Off.

After some investigation, I discovered that in XP SP2, Microsoft changed the acceptable values for the MaintainServerList entry from On, Off, and Auto to Yes, No, and Auto, respectively. Thus, we needed to change our workstations' MaintainServerList entry value from Off to No. (We also found that a value of False works.) After we made this change, the warning disappeared.

—Todd Atteberry
[email protected]