WINS Help Needed

At home I have a 3 user ad-hoc wireless network consisting of 2 desktops and

1 laptop, all running XP Pro SP2 and connected via Belkin USB 802.11G adaptors (although they only connect using 802.11B which I assume is a limitation of not using a router).

IP addresses are assigned manually in the range 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.3 (subnet 255.255.255.0).

The desktop that has the shared internet connection is protected by a s/w firewall (NIS 2005).

I recently performed an on-line security check on the Symantec site (which checked out o.k) but noticed in the results summary the advice to enter an IP address for the WINS Server and disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP in the advanced section of the n/w connection properties to increase security.

My question is, what IP address do I enter for the WINS Server? Is it the manually assigned IP address I am currently using and do I need to do this on each machine or am I completely mis-understanding what is required?

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Garry Douglas

***Please remove SPMOFF to reply***
Reply to
Garry Douglas
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"Garry Douglas" hath wroth:

None. You don't have a WINS server so the question is irrelvent. What a WINS server does is provide NETBIOS machine names to IP address translation. If you don't need that feature, you don't need a WINS server. That function is currently being provided on your all client network using the "Windows Browser".

Also, if you disable NETBIOS over TCP/IP, and you have an internal network, Windoze Networking might cease to function depending on which version of Windoze you're running. If it's XP Pro SP2 on every desktop, then you're safe. However, if you have any Windoze 95/98/ME clients, you'll need NETBIOS over TCP/IP enabled.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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