obsolete domain names in Network Neighborhood

[yokeydokey]

My agency is part of a state network made up of many NT and AD domains. My agency alone used to consist of dozens of NT domains but now uses only one, but there are still several old domain controllers out in the field that are being used as file and DHCP servers now but no longer authenticate logins. The problem is, almost 50 obsolete domain names still are showing up in Network Neighborhood. Any tips on how to clean them out - where to look, etc.? Thanks in advance.

 

[koolage]

try from command prompt:

ipconfig /flushdns

otherwise..

try un-installing TCP/IP ---reboot---then re-install TCP/IP.
(make sure you have at least one protocol installed when removing TCP/IP)

after that...might want to get rid of NetBEUI protocol ;o)

~koolage

 

[yokeydokey]

Uninstall TCP/IP on what? There are 900 computers. And we are still using WINS for name resolution so flushing DNS wouldn't help. Thanks though. It's a Browser issue, and I'm afraid the only way to clean it up is to shut down ever computer on the entire network and force flush the caches, then new browser elections, etc. I was hoping for a more plausible solution since this agency has 54 sites statewide. Not likely to get all the computers shut down at once.

 

[ProfessorK]

say are most of the machines Win98?


Prof. K

 

[koolage]

How To Manually Re-create a WINS Database in Windows

this might do the trick...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302079&sd=tech

say have you ever heard of "tombstone" in WINS?

Windows Internet Name Service
A WINS server always enters name registrations in its database in an active state and time stamped with the sum of the current time and the renewal interval. The version ID is taken from the version ID counter, and the counter is then incremented.

If a name is explicitly released or not refreshed during the renewal interval, the name enters the released state. The WINS server gives the database entry a time stamp using the sum of the current time and the extinction interval, and leaves the version ID unchanged. Thus, released records are not replicated. [red]If a record remains released past the extinction interval, the WINS server changes the state of the record to tombstone,[/red] gives the record a time stamp using the sum of the current time and the extinction timeout, and increments the version ID of the record so that the record will be replicated. If a record remains in the tombstone state for a period longer than the extinction timeout, it is deleted from the database.

WINS replicates only records in the active and tombstone states. In the WINS database, WINS enters these replica records with the fields received from the owner database, with the exception of owner ID and time stamp. (The owner ID comes from the local IP address–to–owner ID mapping table because the value used locally to represent a particular WINS server differs from server to server. For example, WINS-D might be represented by a 2 on WINS-B and by a 3 on WINS-A.) WINS gives an active record a time stamp that is the sum of the local current time and the verification interval. WINS gives a tombstone record a time state that is the sum of the local current time and the extinction timeout.

this might help also:

To delete or tombstone an entry in the WINS database

1. Open WINS

2. In the console tree, click Active Registrations.
Where?(WINS---->applicable WINS server---->Active Registrations

3. On the Action menu, click either Find by Name or Find by Owner to display the names you want to delete from the database.

4. In the details pane, click the entry you want to delete.
You can hold down the CTRL or SHIFT keys to select multiple entries.

5. On the Action menu, click Delete.

6. In the Delete Record dialog box, click one of the following options for deleting the selected records:

Delete the record only from this server.
Replicate deletion of the record to other servers (tombstone).

[red]Note[/red]

To open WINS, click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click WINS.

Tombstoning marks records as inactive for a period of time. When the WINS database on this server replicates these records to other WINS servers, the other servers preserve the tombstone state and can eventually remove these entries from a replicated WINS network of server databases.

In step 6, if you click Delete the record only from this server and another WINS server owns the records, then deleted records can reappear after WINS replication occurs with other partner servers. To avoid this, click Replicate deletion of the record to other servers (tombstone).

Once an entry has been tombstoned and its status is replicated to other servers, the tombstoned entries can be removed from WINS, in either of two ways:

Automatically, using the Extinction Interval, which is set from the Intervals tab in WINS server properties.

Manually, by performing a scavenging operation.

~koolage