Ping of short hostname doesn't work, ping of hostname. works, host works, nslookup works

Just installed CentOS 4.3 (kernel 2.6.9-34.EL) on a box and the local network name resolution doesn't work properly. It did work fine with CentOS 3.4 (kernel 2.4.21-32.EL).

Pinging a host on the local network doesn't work. Pinging the same host with a trailing dot works. Local name resolution with both host and nslookup work. Pinging a host on the Internet works. Here's the results of a few commands which show the problem:

[root@linux etc]# hostname
linux.local

[root@linux etc]# ping windows //DOESN'T WORK//
ping: unknown host windows

[root@linux etc]# ping windows. //THIS WORKS--NOTE TRAILING DOT//
PING windows (192.168.0.10) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from windows (192.168.0.10): icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=0.512 ms

[root@linux etc]# host windows //THIS WORKS WITHOUT THE TRAILING DOT//
windows has address 192.168.0.10

[root@linux etc]# nslookup windows //THIS WORKS WITHOUT THE TRAILING DOT//
Server:         192.168.0.1
Address:        192.168.0.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   windows
Address: 192.168.0.10

Contents of some files:

/etc/host.conf:
order hosts,bind

/etc/hosts:
127.0.0.1               localhost
127.0.0.1               linux.local

/etc/sysconfig/network:
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=linux.local

Thanks in advance.