Here's the fundamental question:
What is it on a tcp/ip NT network that really allows the computers to talk to each other? Is it the "browser" service? WINs? LMhosts? hosts? DNS?
Here's my local situation:
I'm running a very small (right now, but with plans to add more and more computers) domain of 6 NT computers for a campus writing center. One runs NTServer and there are 5 workstations in the domain. I'm at a big university where we have network guys who run the cable and administer the physical connections for the whole campus. They use bootp (soon to more to DHCP they tell me) to dynamically assign IP addresses to the individual computers on the campus network.
The 6 computers that I supervise are all in the same room, but their 10baseT connections just disappear into the wall behind them, connected mysteriously to the campus physical network. I register their ethernet card MAC address with the network guys, who assign each computer an IP address and enter their MACs into a bootp entry. How are these computers really talking to each other? Do they send out "browser" broadcasts? Does every computer on the campus network receive these broadcasts, or are they somehow restricted to the domain? I haven't set up any "hosts" or "lmhosts" files for them, nor is the PDC configured as a WINS server. Would I save on campus bandwidth if I did this? I used to get a bunch of "browser election" entries in the event viewer on each workstation, so I actually changed the browser services on the workstations to "manual" and now the computers can still "see" each other, but I don't get the "computer has forced an election on the network" entries that I used to get in the logs. I'm just kinda wondering how it all fits together. Recognizing that none of you are magical mind-readers for our campus network, I'm just wondering if someone might know the basics of how the communication is probably occurring.
Thanks all, from a network newbie,