Windows NT 4.0 DNS WINS Reverse Lookups Do Not Use WINS

On a Windows NT 4.0 Domain Name System (DNS), Reverse WINS lookups are made through node status requests, not through WINS.

Because the WINS database is not indexed by IP addresses, Windows NT 4.0 Domain Naming System (DNS) does not send a reverse name lookup to WINS to get the computer's name given its IP address. Instead, it sends a node status request directly to the given IP address



and gets the NetBIOS name from the node status response:



The DNS then appends the domain name to the NetBIOS name and returns the results to its clients.