NetBIOS Remote Name Cache Time-Out Is 60 Seconds Off (236901)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP2
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP3
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP4
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6a
This article was previously published under Q236901

SYMPTOMS

You may see that the NetBIOS Remote Name Cache caches default entries for 660 seconds, even though the default is 600 seconds.

CAUSE

This issue occurs because Windows NT adds an additional 60 seconds to an entry's cache life.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

This issue is fixed in Windows 2000. Additionally, Windows 2000 provides much finer granularity for cache TTLs (time-to-live) as well as per-adapter NetBIOS name caching.

This value determines the time interval that names are cached in the remote name table. The CacheTimeout parameter for the NetBIOS Remote Name Table has a range of values from 60 to 4,294,967,295 seconds with a default of 600 seconds.

Using the NBTSTAT -c command at the command prompt you can display the names in the table. Note that by default recently cached names are listed for 660 seconds. If you change the CacheTimeout value to something other than the default, the displayed value is 60 seconds higher than what you entered.

CacheTimeout
   Key: Netbt\Parameters
   Value Type: REG_DWORD - Time in milliseconds
   Valid Range: 0xEA60 to 0xFFFFFFFF
   Default: 0x927c0 ( 600000 milliseconds = 10 minutes)
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Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:3/1/2000
Keywords:kbnetwork kbprb KB236901
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