WINS

[Christopher R. Hertel]

First thing:  This kind of question really belongs on the samba at samba.org 
              list.  Many of these problems have already been solved by
              others.  The Samba-Technical list is intended for developer
              discussions of technical issues regarding the CIFS/SMB/NetBIOS
              mess^h^h^h^hprotocol suite.

              I have taken the liberty of moving this thread to that list.

That said...

> I came accross your message in the SAMBA newsgroup and it seemed to me that
> you know a lot about browsing.  

Hahaheehoo!  We've fooled you!  ;)

> I currecntly run a WINS server in a 2000+
> machine nework, however, browsing in windows sucks! 

Sound's like the opinion an expert would give.

> it takes forever for
> all hte machines to appear (15) and most of the time not all machines do
> appear.  my question is actually composed of two parts
> 
> 1) is there a way to get Network Neighborhood to show ALL computers on the
> network which it gets from the WINS server, even after 1 hour, you sitll
> only see a fraction of the computers (No, the WINS database is not
> corrupted)

The key thing here is that WINS does *not* provide the browse list.  The 
two protocols are related only because browsing uses WINS for name 
resolution.  Sometimes.  The only other connection is that Browsing sends 
messages over the NetBIOS Name Service port (which is nasty, but it does 
it anyway).  That's UDP/137.

Beyond that, browsing is a separate protocol.

Are all of these 2000-odd machines in the same Workgroup or NT Domain?

> 2) Most imporantly!! - is there a way to QUERY the NT WINS server for ALL
> of it registered computers... ???

There may be.  I'm not sure.  Lots of folks have asked.

Chris -)-----

-- 
Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
crh at nts.umn.edu              Networking and Telecommunications Services

    Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them
    with your hands...you choose them as your guides, and following
    them you will reach your destiny.  --Carl Schultz