<P> During an established session, each transmitted packet is answered by either a positive - acknowledgment (ACK) or negative - acknowledgment (NAK) response . A NAK will prompt retransmission of the data . Sessions are closed by the non-initiating computer by sending a close request . The computer that started the session will reply with a close response which prompts the final session closed packet . </P> <P> When NetBIOS is run in conjunction with Internet protocols (e.g., NBT), each computer may have multiple names: one or more NetBIOS name service names and one or more Internet host names . </P> <P> The NetBIOS name is 16 ASCII characters, however Microsoft limits the host name to 15 characters and reserves the 16th character as a NetBIOS Suffix . This suffix describes the service or name record type such as host record, master browser record, or domain controller record or other services . The host name (or short host name) is specified when Windows networking is installed / configured, the suffixes registered are determined by the individual services supplied by the host . In order to connect to a computer running TCP / IP via its NetBIOS name, the name must be resolved to a network address . Today this is usually an IP address (the NetBIOS name to IP address resolution is often done by either broadcasts or a WINS Server--NetBIOS Name Server). A computer's NetBIOS name is often the same as that computer's host name (see below), although truncated to 15 characters, but it may also be completely different . </P> <P> NetBIOS names are a sequence of alphanumeric characters . The following characters are explicitly not permitted: \ /: *? "<>. Since Windows 2000, NetBIOS names also had to comply with restrictions on DNS names: they cannot consist entirely of digits, and the hyphen (" - ") or full - stop (". ") characters may not appear as the first or last character . Since Windows 2000, Microsoft has advised against including any full - stop (". ") characters in NetBIOS names, such that applications can use the presence of a full - stop to distinguish domain names from NetBIOS names . </P>

Which protocol provides names and name resolution for workgroups in windows