WINS Backup and Restore

WINS is vital for large, mixed network environments. Regular maintenance should be performed to ensure the correct functionality and performance. The WINS database should be regularly backed up to ensure that in case of a failure, the WINS database can easily be restored with minimum downtime for the network.

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To backup the WINS database, open up the WINS console and right-click on the server. Select Back Up Database. Choose a location such as an empty folder or one created earlier. Click on OK to accept the location. The database has successfully been backed up. Click on OK to continue.

Restoring the WINS database

To restore the WINS database the WINS service must first be stopped. Open up the WINS console and right-click on the server. Select All Tasks. Click on Stop to stop the WINS service. The WINS service is then stopped. A red cross next to the server indicates that the WINS service is unavailable. To restore the database, right-click on the server. Select Restore Database. Select the location of the backup, in this case winbak and click on OK. The database will be restored and the WINS service will automatically be restarted. The database has successfully been restored. Click on OK to continue. The green arrow next to the server indicates the service is running.

Compacting the Database

The WINS server will periodically check through its database and delete any unused records. Unfortunately, the WINS server removes unused records but doesn’t reclaim the space. Making the database size unnecessarily large. The jetpack utility is used to manually compact the WINS database. In order to use the jetpack utility, the WINS service must first be stopped.

  1.  Stop the WINS service and open up a command prompt.
  2. Find the location of the WINS database, normally located inside the \WINNT\SYSTEM32\WINS folder
  3. Find the database file, normally called WINS.MDB. Run the command
    jetpack wins.mdb temp.mdb.

The wins.mdb file will be temporarily compacted to a file called temp.mdb. Once the file has been compacted, temp.mdb will be renamed to wins.mdb. Finally, restart the WINS service.