How to find domain netbios name

How to find the NetBIOS domain name

Windows 2000 provides support for applications that use the NetBIOS networking API and the flat NetBIOS names used by these applications. This support for non-DNS domain and computer names allows computers that are running Windows NT 4.0 and earlier, or those that are running Windows 95 or Windows 98, to identify Windows 2000 domains.

In the most cases, the default NetBIOS domain name is the leftmost label in the DNS domain name up to the first 15 bytes (NetBIOS names have a limit of 15 bytes). You may change NetBIOS domain name during the installation of the Active Directory, but you cannot change it thereafter.

Also the the default NetBIOS domain name may not be the leftmost label in the DNS domain name if you upgrade the PDC from NT to Serve 2000/2003 AD. In this case, you may want to use nbtstat -c command to find the NetBIOS domain name which displays like this <DOMAIN><1B>. <DOMAIN><1B>is used to identify the domain master browser name, which is a unique name that only the domain controller can add. The domain controller processes GetBrowserServerList requests on this name. WINS assumes that the computer that registers a domain name with the <1B> character is the domain controller.

Alternatively, you can go to Active Directory Users and Computer, right-click on the domain and select Properties. Under General, the Domain name (Pre-windows 2000) displays the NetBIOS domain name.

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