Resolving NetBIOS Names Using Lmhosts

In the early days of NetBIOS, Microsoft borrowed an idea from UNIX for resolving host names using a static lookup file. UNIX hosts were resolved using a Hosts file, and because the Microsoft team was working on OS/2 LAN Manager at the time, the NetBIOS name lookup table was called Lmhosts. Neither filename has an extension.

TCP/IP-Related File Locations

The \Windows\System32\Drivers\etc folder holds a sample Lmhosts file called Lmhosts.sam. You can either rename this file to Lmhosts and modify the contents or you can create a new file called Lmhosts.

The directory holding Lmhosts is defined by the following Registry entry:

Key:HKLM | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Services | Tcpip | Parameters
Value:DataBasePath ...

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