Hi,
BOL documents the Browser Service as doing a redirect to the nammed instance, but my question is, if this redirect fails, does it connect you directly?
The reason I am asking is because of an interesting behaviour I noticed at work yesterday, which some other people have also noticed on Google.
The named instance was up, but the port was blocked by the firewall, trying to connect on that port failed (as expected).
With the Browser Service running, it you connect to the instnace with no port specified (so Browser re-directs you), then the first connection attempt times out, but if you try and connect again, it connects you to the instance.
I had it in the back of my mind that Browser Service could connect you directly to an instance, and if this is not possible, then I cannot explain the behaviour I have just described, but I can't find anything to back-up my theory.
Any ideas?
Pete
Peter Carter http://sqlserverdownanddirty.blogspot.com/