Windows Active Directory: This warning has me confused on the Microsoft Naming Conventions support page

The page:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/909264/naming-conventions-in-active-directory-for-computers-domains-sites-and

The warning:

Warning The use of NetBIOS scopes in names is a legacy configuration and should not be used with Active Directory forests. For more information about NetBIOS scopes, visit the following non-Microsoft Web sites:

The non-Microsoft websites being these:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1001.txt
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1002.txt

I can’t tell if they mean you shouldn’t do something like this:

domain.domain-dc
domain.domain-printserver
domain.domain-workstation

Or that they mean you shouldn’t do something like this:

domain.dc
domain.printserver
domain.workstation

I’m assuming the first example.

The warning suggests to me that you can turn off NetBIOS naming scopes in AD. I didn’t know that was a thing.

For example, when you setup the domain name you do something like,

mydomain.local

And it’ll say that the NetBIOS equivalent is

mydomain

Or something to that effect. My AD setups have always had NetBIOS running alongside proper DNS. I always thought NetBIOS was just a wheel we had to drag behind us.

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There’s allegedly a way to shutdown netbios, and I did a little research on it, but we have some systems still using netbios naming so I was unable to get away with it. I’m with you, it’s just something we have to keep with us for now. I’ve never had it affect DNS negatively but it does cause some strange issue with new versions of software, i.e. manage engine, and alien vault.

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I believe that this is referring to the use of a netBIOS naming scope similar to a DNS zone.

For example if you had a PC named “WORKSTATION1” and your domain’s netBIOS name was “COMPANYCO” a central server could be used to resolve “fully qualified” netBIOS names including “WORKSTATION1.COMPANYCO”.

The leading example of this is WINS, but it is a legacy component and Windows Server DNS setup has pushed you away from setting up WINS servers for a long time.

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