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Builtin mDNS/DNS-SD (ZeroConf) support in Windows 10

Question

Thursday, January 11, 2018 2:59 PM | 1 vote

It is my understanding that mDNS and DNS-SD support has been added to Windows 10 out of the box (per https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/b334e797-ef80-4525-b74a-b4830420a14e/windows-10-spams-network-with-invalid-mdns-response-packets?forum=win10itpronetworking ), but when attempting to ping a node that advertises via mDNS, Windows 10 cannot resolve it.

From a command prompt of a clean install of Windows 10:

C:\>ping far-80770005.local
Ping request could not find host far-80770005.local. Please check the name and try again.

C:\>

However, I can ping it directly using the IPv6 address:

C:\>ping fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123

Pinging fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123: time=1ms
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123: time<1ms
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123: time<1ms
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123: time<1ms

Ping statistics for fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms

C:\>

From another Windows PC with Bonjour installed:

C:\>ping far-80770005.local

Pinging far-80770005.local [fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123%11] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123%11: time<1ms
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123%11: time<1ms
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123%11: time=1ms
Reply from fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123%11: time<1ms

Ping statistics for fe80::230:64ff:fe2b:9123%11:
   Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
   Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms

C:\>

Is there some registry key that needs to be set to enable mDNS resolution in Windows 10?  Both systems have IPv6 installed and running..

All replies (2)

Monday, March 26, 2018 4:20 AM

It has only been added to the modern APIs and not available in Win32. Which is why you can use it to discover and communicate with network printer and IOT from the Settings app but not actually use hostname.local from classic programs. You can also configure it to work in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

You can install a third-party mDNS resolver such as Bonjour for Windows to enable support in Win32.


Tuesday, April 3, 2018 1:00 PM

Hi DGtlRift - I confirmed the same behavior. Without either Bonjour or using .NET 4.6 API's, mDNS will not respond. I'm using an ESP8266 as a mDNS responder on a private WEP network.