Managing WINS Servers

Windows 2000 provides an updated version of WINS Manager, a graphical administrative utility that you can use to manage WINS on your network. The updated version of WINS Manager is a Microsoft Management Console snap-in, giving you the ability to further integrate and customize WINS administration to your network management needs.

The WINS management console contains significant enhancements, as compared to earlier versions, many of which were suggested by network managers. These new features include:

  • Persistent connections

  • Manual tombstoning

  • Improved management utilities

  • Enhanced filtering and record searching

  • Dynamic record deletion and multiple selection

  • Record verification and version number validation

  • Export function

  • Increased fault tolerance

  • Dynamic renewal of clients

The WINS management console provides the utilities you need to maintain, view, back up, and restore the WINS server database. To view and change parameters for WINS servers, use the WINS management console. For more information about specific administration and configuration tasks, see WINS management console Help.

System Monitor and SNMP agent service are also valuable tools for managing a WINS server. You can use System Monitor to monitor WINS server performance.

You can use the SNMP service to monitor and configure WINS servers by using third-party SNMP manager utilities. When using a third-party SNMP manager utility, some WINS queries may time out; if so, you should increase the timeout on the SNMP utility you are using. Microsoft Information Base objects are supported by Windows 2000 SNMP Service. MIB objects are formally described objects that provide support for SNMP to allow the monitoring of processes, such as error counts, status records, and the contents of the IP routing table of a computer. For more information about MIB object types see "MIB Object Types" in this book. For more information about System Monitor and SNMP agent service, see "Simple Network Management Protocol" in this book and "Monitoring Network Performance" in the Microsoft ® Windows ®  2000 Server Resource Kit Server Operations Guide .