Okay. First, there are two name services involved. One is DNS. The other is Windows' naming service, which can either work in an election mode, or can be served by a WINS server, but is basically the same. Let's ignore Windows clients and servers for the moment. When a DHCP client requests an IP address, it can also request a specific name be assigned as well. Usually, this request is granted. If no hostname request is made, some DHCP servers will make up a hostname, but most will just not return a hostname at all. Many DHCP servers are also set up to pass new DHCP leases along to a DNS server, so that the DNS server gets dynamically updated when a new machine comes on the network. This used to be a very clean way to do this, until Windows 2000 came along. When a Windows 2000 machine gets a DHCP address from its server, it also tries to update its configured DNS server directly (with more info than just the hostname -- I think it's trying to store some Active Directory stuff there as well, but don't quote me on that). This means that the DNS server needs to trust all clients. Most admins (especially non-Windows admins) think that this is an exceptionally bad idea. In reality, most admins have their servers perform as I listed above and ignore those updates from the clients. Windows servers usually have DHCP and DNS (and AD) integrated so that you don't need to do anything to get it to work right (for certain Microsoft-defined values of `right'). Also, Windows clients usually use the Windows nameservice in addition to DNS in order to find clients. This works for even IP-specific utilites like ping.

I think that this clears up most of the questions that were posed, but if it doesn't (and I'm sure that I've left some things out), reply and I'll be happy to clear it up.