Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 March 14

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March 14

Alright, so how does DNS work

How there are some people/organizations that middleman me between a server and a Domain. Like, which central authority "sells" the ability for others to register and unregister domain names, why can't I directly register one domain, or TLD? Why do I have to pay, to whom the money goes to? Also do DNS servers take DNS data from another DNS server?

Also related, why do I have to pay for internet, can't I somehow lay a cable and connect to it myself? 186.146.10.154 (talk) 03:01, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

See ICANN and IANA. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 03:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Informative, so, why wouldn't I pay directly to IANA instead of some middleman? 186.146.10.154 (talk) 04:16, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Laying a cable to connect to your nearest internet backbone would require agreement with the owner of that backbone - and they might want to charge you money for the privilege. SteveBaker (talk) 04:05, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

From our archives: Basic domain registering questions, December 2010: IANA and ICANN will not work with you directly, even if you are a "medium-sized" nation: they delegate such work to authorized sub-organizations, who in turn delegate to commercial partners, and so on... and connectivity is sub-delegated all the way until you find your local retail- or commercial- internet service provider. Here's IANA's explanation, root zone management and policy documents. Nimur (talk) 15:38, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

The DNS is a big database. The entities that run it charge you to put an entry in it. You're perfectly capable of running your own DNS (see alternative DNS root), but there's nothing forcing anyone else to use yours. Your question about "connecting to the Internet yourself" has more or less the same answer. Really, if you've ever plugged a cable into something to carry Internet data, you've "connected to the Internet yourself". But, you presumably signed up with your ISP first. You paid them, and they let you connect to their network. A whole bunch of people built that network and maintain it, to allow your computer to talk to one on the other side of the planet, and they want to get paid. Obviously you could break into their equipment and connect to it without permission, but the law tends to frown on that (plus, a lot of ISP stuff will have some kind of authentication to keep out unauthorized users). --71.119.131.184 (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Windows 10 and networking

We have eight desktops on our home network. Four use Windows 10 and four use Windows 7. Microsoft is encouraging Windows 7 users to upgrade to Windows 10. My only problem with Windows 10 is networking.

With Windows 7, I could click on Network and it would show me all of the computers on the network. I had sharing on, so I could access them from another computer and copy files, etc, much as I could if I was on the other computer.

With Windows 10, only the current computer and the Windows 7 computers show up on the network. I tried everything I could think of to get them to work like Windows 7 - allow sharing, etc. I tried and tried, but nothing worked.

Does Windows 10 have the ability to show up on a home network and allow it to be used from another computer on the network the way Windows 7 and earlier did? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:30, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Have you made your Windows 10 PCs discoverable as described here? You can also look here. Ruslik_Zero 19:52, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Let me try that. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

That first link shows how to do it with WiFi. I clicked on Ethernet on the left, and the options are a little different. However, I clicked on "change advanced sharing options", and network discovery is on and file and printer sharing is on. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:20, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Are all the networks on the ethernet adapters set to be private networks? Nil Einne (talk) 13:55, 15 March 2016 (UTC)