Improve network performance: Insight

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Improve network performance

By Jim Boyce, TechRepublic
November 07, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/soa/Improve-network-performance/0,139023731,120269681,00.htm

NetBIOS over TCP/IP allows host name resolution for NetBIOS names over the TCP/IP protocol. Windows 2000 uses NetBIOS over TCP/IP to communicate with earlier Windows platforms, such as Windows NT and Windows 9x.

Windows also supports direct hosting, which allows the Windows 2000 client to perform name resolution using DNS directly over TCP/IP without NetBIOS. Windows 2000 clients attempt to establish a connection with both NetBIOS over TCP/IP and direct hosting. Whichever method succeeds first is the one you'll use.

You can disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP and force the Windows 2000 client to use DNS to improve network performance if all the network computers to which the computer needs to connect are running Windows 2000 or later.

Disabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP

You can take one of two approaches to disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP: Disable it outright or configure the computer to take its settings from a DHCP server. The latter is the default setting.

To configure the client, follow these steps:

Open the Properties for the network interface in the Network And Dial-Up Connections folder.
Open the Properties for the TCP/IP protocol, click the Advanced tab, and from there, select the WINS tab (see Figure A).
Select Disable NetBIOS Over TCP/IP to disable it outright, or select Use NetBIOS Setting From DHCP Server if you want the computer to pull the NetBIOS setting when it renews its address lease.
Open the scope on the DHCP server using the DHCP console.
Right-click Scope Options and choose Configure Options.
Click the Advanced tab, and then under Vendor Class, select Microsoft Options.
Select 001 Microsoft Disable NetBIOS Option and set Data Entry to 0x2.
Then, close the scope options and use the Ipconfig command on the client to renew the lease.

Figure A
NetBIOS

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