Question : Lmhosts - Getting it to work

I have some questions...

Can i use lmhosts to have multiple names point to a single ip, i.e

192.168.1.1       magic    #pre
192.168.1.1       server   #pre

so if i go \\server  or \\magic, i open up the same computer     50 points

Another question

if i do a         nbtstat -c

why doesnt it show those entries after i have rebooted, is there a log that shows if lmhosts was loaded to the nbt cache?          125 points

how do i know if Lmhosts is working?  40 points

finally...

where does the lmhosts file have to reside for it be access and what is its extension?  35

I might throw in 50 extra points if you can provide insight into the workings of lmhosts file

Answer : Lmhosts - Getting it to work

"lmhosts" is for NetBIOS name resolution.  On legacy Microsoft networks that don't have a WINS (NBNS) server, this file can help resolve those names.  On Microsoft's more modern operating systems (Windows 2000 and later), if all your applications support DNS, this would be the better way of resolving names.  On these networks, if you don't have a DNS server to resolve your local names, you can use the "hosts" file.  It behaves pretty much the same way but does not use the #PRE and other # options.

Both of these files reside in %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers\Etc
None of them have an extension but both can be edited using notepad.exe

As far as having two different names for the same IP, yes, I do this on my network and it works fine.

Entries with #PRE are loaded into the cache when you reboot however, maybe the case matters?  Try with uppercase and see if it makes a difference... let us know.