The Domain Name System (DNS) for translating fully-qualified domain names or FQDNs to IP addresses has been around since 1983. In the year 2000, this protocol got an additional popularity bump when Microsoft announced its intention to move away from its proprietary WINS protocol to DNS for name resolution. But what's interesting about this pervasive service is how misunderstood it remains today by users and administrators alike. Eight years after Microsoft's intention to base all name resolution on DNS, many administrators still don't have a firm grasp on its internal workings.

The little protocol that could, it's likely that the misunderstandings about DNS stem from Windows administrators focus on its server side. Microsoft's implementation of DNS is simple to install and configure, and its support of dynamic registration makes it one of those set-it-and-forget-it kinds of services on the network. But where much of the interesting bits of DNS happens is down at the client level. The process of DNS resolution and client configuration, whether be it on servers or workstations, has changed relatively little over Microsoft's last few OS updates.

In this four-part series, let's take some time to unravel some of the complexities of DNS resolution at the client level. We'll ignore completely for now much of the configuration that occurs at the server level, instead focusing our attention on the process of resolution and the configuration settings you're seeing today on Windows XP and Vista workstations.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2!