WINS and Exchange 2003

[irbk]

When we first set up our Exchange 2003 server many, many years ago, we hired a consultant. According to the consultant, Exchange, along with some other Microsoft services, still require WINS. We had WINS running on an old server so it wasn't a problem. However, years later, it's now time to decomission that old server and I'm wondering if I really need WINS. We only run WINS on 1 server at our central office. We have 7 other locations, all on seperate subnets, that don't have WINS (except for what ever WINS lookups DNS may do). All of our client systems are Win XP and all of our servers are W2k, with most of them being Windows 2003 Servers. I've done a bit of googling but most of the articles that I found for WINS vs DNS were written before Server 2003. So, before I go through the hassle of setting up WINS on a new server, do I really need WINS on the network?

Thanks in advance.

 

[xmsre]

Exchange 2003 still relies on Netbios Name resolution. WINS is a heck of a lot better than relying on broadcasts. Yes, you need WINS.

 

[irbk]

10-4 Thanks xmsre

 

[xmsre]

For specifics on what functionality is dependent on netbios name resolution, see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837391/en-us