Short Answer:
Humans think in terms of names, computers think in terms of IP's. There
needs to be a translation service. Without WINS or its sister, DNS, your
network would rely on broadcasts or hosts/imposts files. On small networks,
that's fine and not a burden. On bigger / busy networks (not sure of MS's
definition) it helps to have a "helper" service do the translation for you.
WINS is a database that resolves a NetBIOS name to an IP. It only works if
you specify in your clients TCP/IP properties that there is a WINS server.
It takes a few hours/days to build the database too. It also automatically
updates itself as PC's get new IP addresses from your DHCP server.
Theoretically if you have AD enabled DNS setup with automatic updates, then
you really don't "need" WINS. But in a busy network, especially where DNS is
also handling outbound DNS queries for your internet traffic, every little
bit helps. WINS has almost 0 overhead and is very reliable in my opinion.
Your mileage may vary. . .
