Win2000 Server: TCP/IP configuration full Raiders (below)

Setting up WINS Servers

Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) is a very effective way to find named servers and workstations connected to a Microsoft TCP/IP network. A WINS server contains a Windows 2000 Server configured with a TCP/IP protocol stack and running a WINS server application. The WINS server contains a distributed database with an IP address and a network computer name. The word distributed is very important for understanding WINS. It means that there can be more than one WINS server in the network, and each WINS server can jointly use the combined database resources to resolve the name and IP address. If the user is going to configure the local server to use WINS, the unknown network name is automatically resolved to the IP network address. This allows the user's WINS server to attach an IP address to the sink field of the data frame it transmits.

WINS has the following useful features:

*WINS NetBIOS interface is faster and more flexible than DNS.

* Configuring a client to use WINS virtually eliminates the need to support LMHOSTS files on each workstation. This makes the management of the LAN more convenient and eliminates the need for workstations to be constantly updated. If a client workstation requires an address, it can get one from a centrally managed WINS server.

*Using WINS reduces the need to use broadcast packets to get network names, which improves network performance.

*WINS makes browsing across router domains effective.

*WINS services can grow as the network grows. The distributed database feature means that additional WINS servers can be added as required by the network.

*When DHCP issues a new IP address for a computer moving between subnets, the address is automatically updated in the WINS database.

Based on the above, we configure WINS as follows:

1. Click the WINS tab in the Advanced TCP/IP Settings window. The window shown.

2. Click the "Add" button to open the "TCP/IP WINS Server" dialog box as shown.