WINS databases and browser problems.

I dont know enough about WINS...

I have been having problems on my network.
1 of the BDC's and its PC's could not browse the network (DNS was OK).
the rest of the network could catch brief glimpses of this BDC.

There was no traffic on the network and all pings were replying OK.

The WINS databases had references to old workgroups and PC's. I was unable to remove individual entries, so the entire WINS data was removed (Delete Owner).

The network has since recovered to its usually carefree (NT ?) ways.

I am sort of curious as to why old entries (1-2 years) don't die, and was deleting owner the right approach.
Are there guidlines as to what I should have done?

And lastly - I have the option to backup the WINS database, but not to restore.

Pointers and sharp intakes of breath would be read with relish.

NB.

As long as you're not having some static mapping or replication with another network in your WINS database, you'll be fine if you blow out the entire database and let it rebuild itself.

-Stop the WINS service
-delete the contents within \<systemroot>\system32\WINS\
-do the same on all servers running WINS
-Restart the WINS service on all servers

And if you have any static mapping...
-add any static mappping, push/pull relationships

No static mapping that I am aware of.
As I have the whole weekend ahead - I'll empty WINS and suffer on Sunday.

Our WINS servers point to themselves as primary and to the PDC as secondary. This seems to be nonsense to me now that I have read through WINS info. If the server has a full copy of the database why would it want to look elsewhere ???

Servers that run WINS as a service need to point to themselves both as primary and secondary. I had a call in to Microsoft about this one and they said this is done as to not confuse the server with the master browse list.

As a personal rule, an all servers, I point WINS to itself for both primary and secondary. For the DHCP scope for the clients is where I point to the WINS servers.