Computer name and domain name resolution to computers on remote segments is
failing. The more specific symptoms you may see are the inability to:
| • | Ping a remote computer (across a router) by its computer name (NetBIOS
name).
|
| • | log on to a domain when the only domain controllers are on other side of
routers.
|
| • | Net View or Net Use computers that are on the other side of routers.
|
| • | retrieve the browse list of a remote domain that the client sees in its
local browse list.
|
You also may discover that other remote clients can no longer Net View or
Net Use your client, and that your client registrations in WINS have
expired (as indicated with a hyphen "-" or a tombstone "+" character).
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The client has stopped querying WINS, and instead is relying only on subnet
broadcasts for name resolution (like a b-node client). This may happen if
the following two conditions are met:
| • | The primary WINS server has gone down.
-and-
|
| • | The client does not have a secondary WINS server listed for name
resolution (or the DHCP lease does not give a secondary WINS address).
|
The reason for this behavior is in the WINS query algorithm on the client:
| 1. | When booting up, register your name with your primary WINS server.
Or when performing a normal name query, first send the request to your
primary WINS server.
|
| 2. | If the primary WINS server does not respond after 3 attempts, send your
registration or query to the secondary WINS server listed.
|
| 3. | If the secondary WINS server does not respond after 3 attempts, send the
query again to the primary WINS server, and continue alternating between
primary and secondary WINS server until one of them responds.
|
The problem results if there is no secondary WINS server listed. The client
sometimes reverts to B-Node (broadcast only) behavior and stops querying
the WINS server completely.
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If you only have one WINS server, you should fill in its IP address as both
the primary and secondary WINS server on all clients.
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Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products
listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem
and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it
becomes available.
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