Question : DOMAIN MASTER Browser - What are the RIGHT settings and the best practices?

I have a domain with 5 dc's.
All the roles are on one of them except the infrastructure role which is moved to a 2nd dc in the same site.
The 2nd dc is on a different subnet than the 1st dc with all the roles.
The other dc's are at remote sites.
I have a 2003 domain with about 50 member servers and 350 clients.
i am getting error 8003 mxrsmb with clients promoting themselves.
I have looked at stopping the browser service on clients but read a post that if you do this on a client machine clients can't use the MY NETWORK PLACES but I have read that many people do this?  So that must not be right?
I then have looked at the ISDOMAINMASTER Reg key on the dc's and the member servers.  I believe the value should only be set to true on the dc with the pdc emulator role on it?  Is that right?
Now on the other servers I have started stopping the computer browser service and disabling it and then verifying that the default value of the ISDOMAINMASTER reg key is set to FALSE.
is that preferred?  I have many MS articles but nothing gives a best practice or advice on what to do?
I am looking for someone that knows for sure how to get this right and what the ISDOMAINMASTER key does?  First I read that TRUE means that is set only on the master browser server and you should only set that on one server in the domain.
Then I read that you can set that on any server you want to get promoted if the default master server- the one with the pdc emulator is not available and that the TRUE value just gives the server a better chance of getting promoted.
Anyone know for sure and can someone tell me what I LOSE if I turn the browser service off on member servers and clients?  Can the file sharing still work?  Will WINS still work and My NEtwork Places?

Answer : DOMAIN MASTER Browser - What are the RIGHT settings and the best practices?

Oh, yeah, the good old master browser blues ...;-)

1) In a Windows domain with a working WINS/DNS, the domain browsing is not needed. If there is no local browse list, clients will ask WINS/DNS.
2) IsDomainMaster has nearly nothing to do with the PDC role. This registry setting just controls, which server will be the domains master browse list handler. Normally this role is automatically assigned the PDC emulator, but this is not a "must".

To answer your question regarding what you will loose when you disable browsing: if your WINS is working: NOTHING.

What I normally do:
On workstations: disable the Computer Browser service, set MaintainServerList under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters to NO, set IsDomainMaster to FALSE
On member servers and DCs: leave settings as is after the initial installation. If you like you can disable the service on your member servers too. I've heard that disabling them on the DCs woks fine too, but I haven't tried by myself.

Hope it helps,

Michael