Can't resolve DNS host that's not in WINS

[WANguy2k]

We have a webmail server in house servername.mydomain.com. Usually people access the server by going to mail.mydomain.com, which was an added DNS entry. At some point the DNS cache may have been cleared (or something else) and mail.mydomain.com stopped working. I checked DNS and found the mail.mydomain.com name was missing and added it back in again. However, I still couldn't access the host, even though an NSLOOKUP on my PC resolved the name. If I tried to ping the server the name couldn't be resolved. In order to fix the problem I had to add the host name to WINS on the server.

If client PCs are configured for WINS and DNS, shouldn't the host name be resolved by DNS if the name can't be found in WINS? If I add a host name in DNS, will it add itself to WINS? How long does this take?

 

[Serbtastic]

To answer your questions:

If client PCs are configured for WINS and DNS, shouldn't the host name be resolved by DNS if the name can't be found in WINS?
The answer is maybe. It depends on the node type your hosts are configured for (

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;142042).

If I add a host name in DNS, will it add itself to WINS?
No, it doesn't work this way.

How long does this take?
See second question.