Windows Internet Name Service
Windows Internet Name Service is Microsoft's implementation of NetBIOS Name Service, a name server and service for NetBIOS computer names. Effectively, WINS is to NetBIOS names what DNS is to domain names — a central mapping of host names to network addresses. Like the DNS, it is implemented in two parts, a server service and a TCP/IP client component which manages the client's registration and renewal of names, and takes care of queries.
This is the predecessor to DNS and has been deprecated by Microsoft.
