In article
,
tek wrote:
What command can I execute to find which PC is acting as the WINS
server in my LAN?

If a network connection has been configured to use a WINS server,
"ipconfig/all" will show the server's IP address.

At the risk of stating what you already know: a typical workgroup
network doesn't have a WINS server. WINS usually requires a computer
running a server operating system.

The \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts files on each PC do not
contain static IPs because the router is the DHCP server. What allows
me to ping by hostname if there is no WINS server available? I must be
missing something in the way NetBIOS works.

I downloaded the nblookup tool and these are the results I get when I
execute it. It's telling me that each PC is an acting WINS server and
I don't understand how that can be true. BTW, I should mention all the
PCs in the LAN are Windows XP Home SP2.

C:\Tempnblookup -s pc1

pc1 resolved to 192.168.0.106
Default Server: 192.168.0.106

Recursion is on

Querying WINS Server: 192.168.0.106
NetBIOS Name: pc1
Suffix: 20

Name returned: PC1
Record type: Unique
IP Address: 192.168.0.106

...

C:\Tempnblookup -s pc2

pc2 resolved to 192.168.0.105
Default Server: 192.168.0.105

Recursion is on

Querying WINS Server: 192.168.0.105
NetBIOS Name: pc2
Suffix: 20

Name returned: PC2
Record type: Unique
IP Address: 192.168.0.105

I think that the results from running the NBLookup tool on your
network are misleading. There is no WINS server in a Windows XP
workgroup network like yours. I suspect that the WINS server that the
NBLookup identifies is the computer that was able to resolve the
computer name that you queried. In a workgroup, that name resolution
is done using NetBIOS over TCP/IP, not using WINS.

With no WINS server, you can assign static IP addresses to all of the
computers and create an LMHosts file (not a Hosts file) on each
computer that specifies the mapping of NetBIOS names to IP addresses.

But neither WINS nor LMHosts should be necessary on a workgroup
network, unless the network has multiple IP subnets.

Why are you asking about WINS in the first place? If something isn't
working right, there's probably a better solution.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

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