Windows is a moderately popular platform for name servers. The best bet at time of writing is probably to use one of the ports of BIND, Microsoft's DNS server from Windows 2003, or a commercial alternative. Microsoft's name server implementations are closely tied to their server licensing. Non-Microsoft servers usually function on either workstation or server variants of Windows, and several are free.
BIND now includes official support for Windows, for both BIND 8 and BIND 9. This is a stable and reliable server in a number of production environments, although server administration is command-line based. Recommended; free software, source code freely available.
Len Conrad's web site documents the BIND 8 port and provides help in configuring it. Getting a bit out of date.
MetaInfo has a commercial port of BIND to Windows called Meta DNS Pro, which is fully functional and well regarded. Its management frontend runs only on Windows, but the server is actually available for Windows, Linux or Solaris, as one would expect of a BIND-based product.
The DNS server in Windows 2003 has seen increasing adoption since its first release for Windows 2000 in 1999. It is regarded as stable and is well-integrated with Microsoft's server administration tools. This is in contrast to Microsoft's Windows 2000 client networking subsystem, which generates dynamic DNS updates using a dubious heuristic, and has been shown to be the cause of a large proportion of root name server queries (all completely useless). There is extensive discussion about the Microsoft name server, especially as regards migration and use in heterogeneous server environments, in the archives of the bind-users mailing list.
Microsoft's DNS server component of NT Server 4.0 was not provided with the Workstation version of NT. This server appears to be reasonable, although there are mixed feelings about its suitability for robust, large-scale service. The DNS server in NT Server 4.0 features integration with WINS, has a GUI database frontend and a control panel. However, it has been found to be vulnerable to a variety of denial-of-service attacks. If using this server, it is important to keep up to date with software updates from Microsoft; the Service Packs for NT 4.0 and subsequent DNS-related hotfixes are mandatory to resolve the most serious security issues.
If the Microsoft NT 4.0 DNS server is integrated with WINS, it will generate nonstandard resource records containing the dynamic WINS information. Outward zone transfers from such a server may fail if the initiating server is standards-based. Older versions of BIND (pre-4.9.5) will also terminate when encountering these records during a zone transfer. The properties for each zone include an option to switch off the generation of these records by the Microsoft DNS server, and Microsoft recommends doing so when these zones need to be transferred to a non-Microsoft server.
The Windows NT 3.51 Resource Kit from Microsoft included a DNS server. This had several major shortcomings and was beta code--it is not appropriate for use as an Internet name server under any circumstances.
Simple DNS Plus is commercial software for Windows (any version from Windows 95 to 2003). It seems fully functional and targeted to small sites and home users with permanent Internet connections. It has some innovative features, but I have no first hand experience with it.
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