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WINS (Windows Internet Name Service) does not provide browsing (e.g. Network Neighborhood). WINS provides NetBIOS name registration and resolution to WINS clients.

Browsing across subnets, requires the presence of a Domain Master Browser to merge all of the separate browse lists (collected by the domain's Segment Master Browser on each subnet) into a single list and to provide that list back to the SMBs. As the name implies, the DMB is a member of an NT domain (specifically it is the PDC of the domain). So you must have an NT domain in place to provide browsing across subnets.

WINS only serves 3 purposes related to browsing. Actually, #3 isn't strictly browsing related, since the behavior is identical when you use the "net" command (or other methods) to do the same thing.

1) When the SMBs need to contact the DMB, they can find it by the "domainname [1B]" entry that the DMB registers in WINS. You can duplicate this functionality by providing a 1B entry in the lmhosts file of the SMB. Actually, adding the entry to lmhosts is a fix for subnets that have Win95 acting as SMB (95 doesn't seem to look up 1B entries correctly in WINS).

2) The DMB will occasionally query WINS for any 1B entries. If it finds any (other than its own), it adds the domain name to its browse list (only the domain name, not the actual remote list). For whatever reason, MS wrote the code so that the DMB will only look for 1B entries on WINS. It will not look for them in lmhosts or in its own name cache.

3) When a client attempts to browse a domain or to connect to a server via a browse list, it contacts the WINS server. If it is attempting to browse a foreign domain, it uses WINS to resolve the 1B entry to the IP of that domain's DMB, then contacts the DMB for a browse list. If the client is attempting to a server, it contacts WINS to resolve the name to an IP.

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