John Mitchell-245523 (3/1/2012)
Phil Brammer (3/1/2012)
The SQL Browser service is only for named instances. If you change the default port of the default instance, you will always have to specify the new port number on client connections -- the browser service will not help.
That's my experience as well, at least for servers that aren't clustered. We have a default instance on our cluster server that's had its port changed, but we can still connect without specifying the port. I've checked that I haven't got any aliases set up.
John
I suspect there are client aliases set up, or the port has not been changed. SSMS will always try to connect to 1433 for default instances unless you have a client alias set up or you specify the port in the connection string.