Question : Can't browse workgroup after adding DNS Suffix

In our small hosting service we have a total of EIGHT multi-homed Windows 2003 Servers - two NICs each, one nic assigned one or more public IPs, the other NIC assigned a single private IP.  All are a member of the same workgroup... we'll use "MYWORKGROUP-NET" for this case.  All machines *were* able to see one another -- network browsing used to be quite fast, and very reliable.  Then I added DNS services to four of the 8 machines -- two DNS servers as non-recursive, authoritative for their zones only, and two that we consider "outbound" recursive DNS servers for all the servers to use.

The problem started (i believe) when we added the DNS servers.  On those servers, we were prompted that the server did not have a FQDN.  Made sense, have seen it before.  So we went to My Computer --> Properties --> Computer Name tab --> Change... button --> More... button --> Primary DNS suffix, and added our domain name "mydomain.net" to ALL the servers (seemed wise, since they are all servers on our Internet domain, so "why not?" :)

Now, when we try to drill down through My Network places, etc... into the workgroup, where we used to quickly and easily see all the servers, now we see a dwingling few, OR we get an "access denied" message.

Workgroup browsing (on the private NICs) is desired.  What did we break by adding the Primary DNS suffix, and how can we have our cake and eat it too?

The servers CAN see one another -- Clicking Start --> Run and typing \\servername of any of the other servers does bring up a window containing all of the shares on that server... network connectivity / firewall is NOT the issue, as this was all working before... until we added the Primary DNS suffix.

Help!

o

Answer : Can't browse workgroup after adding DNS Suffix

Interesting coincidence indeed.

NetBIOS and the Master Browser do control all of this.  If elections were happening consistently, then you did the right thing by forcing it.

Glad it's fixed.

No issue with refund here.