Do I need WINS?!

djs1w

Senior member
Apr 17, 2001
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Spare me with the 'move this to the networking forum', I tried there and got no help, so here goes...

I'm setting up an Active Directory domain structure for our company and we have approximately 150 Win2k users and 8 NT 4.0 users. We do have plans to move the NT users, but the Active Directory will be in place before the NT machines are moved over to win2k. Do I need a WINS server just for the 8 clients OR would the following be a temporary fix:

-open up the tcp/ip properties, goto the DNS tab and add in domain.com in the 'append these DNS suffixes'.

Thanks in advance for the help...

 

djs1w

Senior member
Apr 17, 2001
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Originally posted by: geekender
Are those the only 8 that you will ever add? I am thinking hosts file.

is the WINS only needed for the NT 4.0 clients to talk to other NT4.0 clients? If so, then just adding those 8 machines to each of their hosts files respectivly would work, probably wouldn't even have to do that because these 8 machines would probably never have to talk to each other, they're just users desktops. Or is the WINS used for the NT 4.0 machines to talk to all other machines on the network, NT 4.0 & Win2k? If it's the latter then I don't see how a hosts file would work.
 

geekender

Platinum Member
Apr 26, 2001
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Are you currently running your Win2k Domain in native mode or mixed mode?

Bottom line, if the Winnt units aren't going to talk to each other, you really don't need Wins or a hosts file. The resources are going to be on the server and they will be using ip addresses to find each other.
 

djs1w

Senior member
Apr 17, 2001
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Originally posted by: geekender
Are you currently running your Win2k Domain in native mode or mixed mode?

Bottom line, if the Winnt units aren't going to talk to each other, you really don't need Wins or a hosts file. The resources are going to be on the server and they will be using ip addresses to find each other.

So how will the NT 4.0 machines resolve this example: \\homes\home\username, that's something similar that's going to be in their login script. Now, with no WINS or hosts file, how's it going to resolve that? DNS? If it uses DNS then wouldn't I have to add the 'domain.com' in the DNS tab of the tcp/ip properties? The domain hasn't been setup yet, as we're still in the planning phase, so the domain is neither mixed or native.
 

Ih8canada

Senior member
Jan 21, 2002
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with the domain in place it would go like

\\domain\\SHARE

and no you don't need WINS, WINS is usually setup on 1 server and that server isnt used for anything. Also run in Mixed Mode it is better performance wise.


~admin
 

Czar

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
28,510
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I think its like this

WINS is a substitute for NETBEUI or however its spelled, so basicly if you have a wins server you dont need netbeui to browse other computers.