WINS 1

[seanos]

I'm quite a newcomer to the whole network admin thing.
I've set up a network at work, and have configured the ip's and dns settings of all the machines that are on the network.
I have WINS disabled on all of the machines on the network. Will setting up WINS increase the speed and efficiency of the network connections....or is it pointless.
If it will help, how do i go about setting it up?

 

[Stiddy]

seanos,

"Will setting up WINS increase the speed and efficiency of the network connections....or is it pointless." This would be the best thing I think you could do. Your BDC's, application servers, and workstations have to know who the PDC is and his IPAddress for authentication. I no you are probably saying to yourself, "I already setup a DNS sever and my workstations can ping the PDC by hostname and by ipaddress." But the fact is DNS and WINS are two different monsters designed to accomplish different tasks. There are two ways to do this.

First, if you have a small network or large network, you could use lmhosts files. This file should be placed in the:
winnt\system32\drivers\etc directory. The file name should be named 'lmhosts' with NO extention. As an example, the lmhosts file might look something like this. Lets say your domain is called 'APPLES'

# YOUR DOMIAN NAME
10.10.10.10 PDCFORAPPLES #PRE #DOM:APPLES # APPLES PDC
10.10.10.10 "APPLES \0x1b" #PRE
10.10.10.10 "APPLES \0x1c" #PRE
10.10.10.11 BDCFORAPPLES #PRE #DOM:APPLES # APPLES BDC
# END OF LMHOSTS FILE

This would work great for you if you are possitive that your environment will not change, meaning your PDC will never crash, your BDC will never crash, your IPAddress range will never change, and so on and so on. These things are important considerations because if any of the above ever does change, and you happen to have 5000 workstations and 500 BDC's, then you have to change the lmhosts file on ever BDC and workstation in your network. Seems like alot of hassle right, well it is. And I am telling you this from experience.
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Secondly, in my opinion the way you should go is create a WINS server. It can run on your PDC, A BDC, or an application server. I suggest you build a seperate application or member server, whatever you choose to call it, and its only functions would be that of a DNS server and a WINS server. "If it will help, how do i go about setting it up?" Well, probably the easiest thing you have ever done before in networking. From the apllication server. Choose START/SETTINGS/CONTROL PANEL/NETWORK/SERVICES/ADD/WINDOWS INTERNET NAME SERVICE.
Wow, you setup a WINS server that easily. The great thing about WINS is it is dynamic. When I say dynamic I mean in short, your machines build the WINS server database for you. After you have rebooted the server, start with your PDC's TCP/IP settings an add the IPAddress of your WINS server. Thats it, now just repeat for all of your BDC's, application servers, and workstations. All of your machines will now be able to authenicate and know whom to authenicate too.
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A SIDE NOTE I HAVE LEARNED:
If your PDC's, BDC's, and application servers which run things like DNS and WINS only serve as those functions and not in any way file servers, then also in the
START/SETTINGS/CONTROL PANEL/NETWORK/SERVICES
choose the SERVER services properties, and check "Maximize throughput for network applications."

This will increase your logons to your PDC 1-3 times faster. Anyway, hope I have helped and answered your question.......Stiddy