Which tool would you use to diagnose NetBIOS name resolution problems on Windows?

• A. Nbtstat
• B. Nslookup
• C. Tracert
• D. Dig

Answer: (A)

NetBIOS name resolution problems are about translating NetBIOS names to IPs over TCP/IP. To diagnose this, you need visibility into the NetBIOS name tables and how names are being resolved. nbtstat is the right tool because it directly interrogates and displays NetBIOS name information: the local machine’s registered NetBIOS names, the remote machine’s NetBIOS name table, and statistics on how names were resolved (from cache versus broadcast). You can view the local names with a quick check, query a remote host’s name table to see if the NetBIOS name resolves to the expected IP, and review the name resolution statistics to pinpoint where the failure lies. You can also refresh or purge the NetBIOS name cache to test resolution from scratch.

Other tools don’t fit this purpose: Nslookup targets DNS name resolution, not NetBIOS; Tracert follows a route to an IP and doesn’t reveal NetBIOS name resolution behavior; Dig is a DNS querying tool not typically used on Windows for NetBIOS issues.