How does Network Neighborhood work in Windows?

Question

Computer networks

Hello, I am tormented by a question, I inform you in advance that I could not find a specific answer to my question on the Internet. Thanks in advance
How does Windows discover other computers on the network (Network Equipment) what protocol by what principle do computers see each other?? Do they send a broadcast packet or multicast as an announcement about themselves?

Answer 1

the service that used to be called Computer Browser is responsible for this.
In a peer-to-peer network, the most important Computer Browser is selected by broadcast packets, which collects information about all hosts, and if someone requests a list of computers in the local area, he sends it.
The choice is based on the order of systems. XP is more important than 2000, Vista is more important than XP, 7 is more important than Vista, 10 is more important than 7. 64 bits are more important than 32 bits, and the server is, in principle, more important than workstations.
Because of this, in a large local area, a situation often arises when a new computer appears on the network, polls others, and either without receiving an answer, or having received in response that there is an equal head, it begins to consider itself a leader and collects information about the network and sends out messages that he is the main one (or just the cat turned off his computer, which was the leader, and the choice of a new leader starts from scratch, and information about the network is being collected for some time). At the same time, for some time, users may receive an incomplete list and not see the entire network in the network environment.
On average, if the current leader has a sufficient version of Windows and does not reboot for a long time, then it may work fine, but this rarely happens. It is good when there is at least one server in the network.
And if this is not a peer-to-peer sit down, then there is no choice, the domain controller is responsible for the list.

Answer 2

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