Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) is Microsoft's implementation of NetBIOS Name Server (NBNS) on Windows, a name server and service for Net BIOS computer names. Effectively, it is to NetBIOS names what DNS is to domain names - a central mapping of host names to network addresses. However, the mappings are dynamically updated (e.g. at workstation boot), so that when a client needs to contact another computer on the network it can get its up-to-date DHCP allocated address.