LMHOST & HOST

A host file is used for DNS and a Lmhost file is used for name resolution.  Check out the following articles for more information.
Q180094, Q163524, Q158487, Q120151, Q172128, Q142309

This might be easier.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q180094
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q163524
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q158487
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q120151
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q172128
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q142309

TRue, basically hosts files are used to resolve host names to ip addresses, lmhosts are used to resolve NetBIOS names to ip addresses

I understand the basic differences (Hosts for DNS and LMHOST for WINS), but I have people here in my department that think the HOSTS file is for Win9x only and the LMHOST is for  WinNT/2000 only. And these people just happen to be my admins.

This is why I was wanting an article to explain the difference. The only articles that actually compare the two that I can find are from the LINUX community.

Jason_S, I haven't had a chance to check all the links you gave as the sites seem to be having a problem right now.

Thanks again

There are two that I am not able to get to using the links above.  You may want to try looking up these by the numbers on the Microsoft site.

Search the knowledge base does not pull up the Qs either. Q142309 is close to what I'm am looking for.

See the deal is if I give my admins all these articles on what each one does they won't even read all the articles and come back and try to stick to their guns. So if I could find one article that describes the differences between the two then it would be easier for them to understand.

I know this is odd but right now they're are literally telling us to edit the HOSTS for 9x machines and to edit the LMHOST for 2000 machines.

Thanks again.

"but I have people here in my
department that think the HOSTS file is for Win9x only and the LMHOST is for  WinNT/2000 only. And these
people just happen to be my admins."
How do these people get these jobs?
Ajnin, they should be working for you, not the other way around

BTW if they were to do a find --> (hosts) file they would find (in 9x) both lmhosts.sam and hosts.sam

"How do these people get these jobs?"

I thought the same thing.  It would be unheard of for me to expect end users to edit these files in the first place.

Thanks the last link should work. The others will help argue my case also.

Actually we don't have the end user changing these settings. We (the PC techs) edit these files but our bosses (the LAN Admins) are the ones telling use how to edit them. They have been here for many years (20+ in some cases)and have mainly delt with a Novell/Unix environment.

And for our AS/400 clients we need to edit the HOSTS file. However I was setting up a Win2000 workstation and they tried telling me that it had to be the LMHOST. I showed them that editing the HOSTS file did what they wanted, but they claimed they read it somewhere and that I should edit the LMHOST file to be safe. This is why I needed the article. As we only edit the HOSTS file on Win9x machines.

Regards &
Thanks again

Glad I could help!

Some more info for you incase you haven't thought of it.

Copy these files out in the users logon script.  That way you would not need to edit all PC's.

Another option is to edit the path of the HOST, and LMHOST files to point to a central location on the network.