Article ID: 205100
Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition
This article was previously published under Q205100
SYMPTOMS
When you restart your Windows NT server that is running Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), the following error message may be displayed:
Events have been registered in the Event viewer. To view these errors:
- Click Start, point to Programs, and click on Administrative Tools (Common), and then click on Event Viewer. This procedure opens the System Log, where WINS errors may be logged.
- Look under the Source column for "Wins" and search for the following Event ID numbers:
The Description area contains the same error message listed above.
This also generates the following Event in the System log.-other related Events-
Application Events generated in the Event Viewer Application log.
Also, when you attempt to start the WINS service manually, the following error message may be displayed:
NOTE: If WINS fails to recreate, check to make sure that the root drive is not full.
CAUSE
This behavior occurs because the WINS database is corrupt or could not be found in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Wins directory.
The error messages indicate that the WINS database is not running because of a corrupt, missing, or renamed Wins.mdb file.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, replace the WINS database. This can be achieved in two ways.
The first method is to restore the WINS database from a backup using WINS Manager. WINS Manager has the capability to create WINS backups and restore WINS backups. To do this:
- Click Start, point to Programs, then point to Administrative Tools(Common).
- Click on WINS Manager.
- On the Mappings menu, click Restore Local Database, which is the only command listed. Restore Local Database is only accessible when the WINS database is unavailable.
- A dialog box is displayed and prompts you for the path to the folder Wins_bak. If you have performed a WINS Backup Database procedure previously, locate the folder and set the path so that the WINS Manager is one level above the wins_bak folder.
For example, if the wins_bak is at E:\Wins_bak then put the directory to E:\ and click OK. WINS Manager locates the WINS.mdb file and restores it. You can then restart the WINS Service as described above.
The second method is to recreate the WINS database. To recreate the WINS database, all the files in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Wins directory need to be moved or archived to a new location.
To replace the WINS database files:
- Click Stop Replication Partners in WINS Manager.
- Stopping the WINS service is unnecessary, because it did not start when the errors listed above occurred.
- Archive or delete the files in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Wins folder but do not delete the folder. (If you do delete the folder, simply recreate a Wins folder in this location. The folder is automatically created only when WINS is installed.)
- Restart the WINS server. Windows NT automatically recreates the files and registers the services that the WINS server uses.
- WINS clients in the environment then need to be restarted in order to register their services with the WINS database.
If restarting the clients is not possible, you may still reregister the services in WINS.
For more information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knoweledge Base: For additional information, see the following article or articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
137423 How to Reregister Services in WINS
MORE INFORMATION
For more information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
185786 Recommended Practices for WINS
150737 Setting Primary and Secondary WINS Server Options
177140 How to Remove Static WINS Entries from All WINS Servers
Keywords: kbnetwork kbprb kbsetup KB205100