Microsoft DNS Service

What is Microsoft DNS Service?

Also called the Microsoft DNS Server service, an optional service on Microsoft Windows NT Server that implements the Domain Name System (DNS) on a server running Windows NT, allowing that server to function as a DNS server or name server.

The Microsoft DNS Service for Windows NT is a fully BIND-compliant implementation of DNS and is an optional component that you can install on a Windows NT server using the Network utility in Control Panel.

It includes a GUI-based tool called DNS Manager that you can use to create and administer resource records on all DNS servers on the network.

Windows 2000 includes an enhanced version of the Microsoft DNS Service that includes the following additional functionality:

• Integration with Active Directory. You can store resource records in Active Directory and replicate them more easily. Using a special resource record called an SRV record, you can integrate downlevel Windows NT–based servers with Microsoft DNS Service installed with Active Directory. The SRV record is defined in Request for Comments (RFC) 2052.
• Support for the DNS dynamic update protocol, a protocol based on RFC 2136 that enables hosts to register their DNS name dynamically with the name server. Hosts can also be required to be authenticated for purposes of dynamic name registration, as defined in RFC 2137.
• Integration with Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), which allows the Windows 2000 DHCP service to automatically register the DNS name of clients.
• Support for the incremental zone transfer method specified in RFC 1995, which allows DNS servers to transfer only zone updates to each other instead of having to transfer entire zone files.
• Support for the Unicode character set.