Ping command adding dns suffix to name.

I have two virtual xp pro machines networked together peer to peer. I can ping between them both using the IP address no problem. One of them allows me to ping by computer name. But the other one appends the dns suffix of my isp (.carolina.rr.com) to the any computer name I am trying to ping which results in time out errors because it is searching for a bad ip address.

I've checked every setting I can think of between the two machines and they are identical. There is nothing in the host or lmhost file on either machine.

Could someone please list what could cause the ping command to append this automatically so I can track it down?

Thanks in advance.

I have got similar thing in Microsoft, so thought that posting it to you might make some help. When the suffix search list is empty or unspecified, the primary DNS suffix of the computer is appended to short unqualified names and DNS query is used to resolve the resultant FQDN. When a Windows XP machine attempts to resolve an unqualified multi-label name, the DNS client will attempt to resolve the name as specified, then will append the domains that are listed in the DNS suffix search order. If you want to control this behavior, you will have to change the this registry entry works for Windows XP :

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DNSClient\AppendToMultiLabelName
Type = DWORD

Data:

• 0 (Do not Append Suffix)
• 1 (Append suffix)

If the registry entry is not present, the default in Windows XP is 1. This registry changes and its effect apply only to the ping command, they do not apply to the Nslookup tool. This is because Nslookup contains its own DNS resolver and does not rely on the resolver built into the operating system (DNS Client). The DNS (multi-label) query packets sent by the nslookup tool will append the domains listed in the suffix search order irrespective of the registry key settings.