Windows host lookup only work with nslookup

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title: 'Windows Host Lookup Only work with nslookup'
date: '2017-03-05T14:13:33-06:00'
status: publish
permalink: /windows-host-lookup-only-work-with-nslookup
author: admin
excerpt: ''
type: post
id: 1083
category:
    - DNS
    - Windows
tag: []
post_format: []

I have struggled with a couple Windows clients and using a DHCP/DNS lookups. Basically I want to use machines(physicals/VM's) on my home network by accessing by their names. Since they all register correctly in the DHCP/DNS device I use I should be able to always use their names which reflect last IP address for it. The goal of course is not to run any additional DHCP or DNS services on my home network. Or result to DYnamic DNS services for each client on my home network. I tend to have a lot of VM's.

In this case I am using a Unify gateway from Ubiquity Networks and it works well. In addition serving DHCP from it does serve me my local DNS for my home network. This works well from Linux but from Windows it does not. In short Windows can find the client name when I use nslookup. But ping(or any other lookup like RDP etc) fails. I tried several things including:
1. Setup Windows client DNS/hostname/IP settings/search domain/registration like it should be.
2. Some googling suggested registry changes and a few other suggestions nothing helpful.
3. Add a domain name to Unify gateway DHCP configuration.

Nothing worked including referencing the client by FQDN. However although not ideal Windows actually does find the client name if you simply add a dot at the end of the short name. For example ping VM1. instead of ping VM1 or ping VM1.localdomain and so forth.

For me this works and I am not going to try and understand what is braindead in name resolution in Windows I can just dda a dot at the end of short names for my use cases.