What does enablling NETBIOS over TCP/IP do?

[trueman]

I remember back in the days of win98 all you had to worry about was tcp/ip when setting up a network. It seems that with XP though oftne you ahve to enbale netbios over tcp/ip to get things working. What exactly does this do?

[originel]

hehe, that's actually kinda funny.

NetBIOS is an old protocol that was replaced by TCP/IP. Sometimes you have to enable it in windows XP to make it backwards compatible with windows 9x which enabled NetBIOS by default. So it's actually because of 9x (like 98) that causes XP to have to do it.

[John Prophet]

NETBIOS is more like "name resolution" as opposed to tcp/ip's address resolution

So when a comp is identified by name ("frontdesk" or "backupsrvr" for example) XP might need Netbios over tcp/ip.

netbios is older than tcp/ip I am pretty sure.

w95 came with NetBeui installed by default..but not tcp/ip. NetBEUI=NetBios Extended User Interface


Usually you shouldnt NEED Netbios over tcp/ip..unless there is an older w98 type machine having issues.

[jmichna]

FWIW...
In my little home network of three PCs (two as dual boot OS boxes), I've run a mix of W98se, WinME, W2K Pro and XP Pro systems over the past several years, and have never had to resort to using Netbui or Netbios for any file or printer sharing -- even between W9x and Win32 OSes... just my $0.02.

[John Prophet]

ya..like I said usually you dont need it..maybe for some older apps though? not sure

[Sixpac_XP]

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/...hoot/netbt.htm