THE NBTSTAT COMMAND

THE NBTSTAT COMMAND

You can manually interact with the NetBIOS with the help of NBTSTAT command. To use this command click on the start button then select RUN... and type "command" without quotes to launch MS-DOS Command Prompt. Alternatively you may click on Start Button then go to Programs and then select Command Prompt. Once you are in Command Prompt you can exit by typing command EXIT . To launch Command Prompt in full screen mode press ALT+ENTER key combination .To get back to the original window again press ALT+ENTER key combination. If you have launched the command prompt you will get

c:\windows>

If you do not get windows displayed after c:\ don't worry just keep going , all required commands will work fine.

Now lets play with the NBTSTAT command.

If you want to get more help from MS-DOS about this command type NBTSTAT/? on the prompt i.e.

c:\windows>nbtstat/?

If you want to get the NetBIOS information of your computer type the following command

c:\windows>nbtstat -a 127.0.0.1

This command will list the NetBIOS information. A typical example

NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

Name Number Type Usage

workgroup 00 G Domain Name

my_computer 03 U Messenger Service

myusername 03 U Messenger Service


MAC Address = 00-02-44-14-23-E6

Please note that we have used our ip address to be 127.0.0.1 . This ip address is called as "Loop Back" ip address because this ip address always refers to the computer you are using.

This example is self explanatory . We need not go in details. We need to know about the Name and Number. The Name displays the Name of the NetBIOS and there is a corresponding hexagonal number . You may see some additional names in your case.

If you want to get the NetBIOS names of a remote computer, the command is

c:\windows>nbtstat -a ipaddress

Example - To get the NetBIOS names of a computer having ip address 203.195.136.156, we shall use the command

NOTE-203.195.136.156 may be a active ip address of someone's computer. I am using it only as an example. Please don't hack this computer.

c:\windows>nbtstat -a 203.195.136.156