WAIS
See wide area information server.
WAN
See wide area network.
Web browser
A software program, such as Internet Explorer, that retrieves a document from a Web server, interprets the HTML codes, and displays the document to the user with as much graphical content as the software can supply.
Web page
A World Wide Web document. Pages can contain almost anything, such as news, images, movies, and sounds.
Web server
A computer equipped with the server software to respond to HTTP requests, such as requests from a Web browser. A Web server uses the HTTP protocol to communicate with clients on a TCP/IP network.
Well Known Port Number
The standard port numbers used by the Internet community for well known (commonly used) services. Ports are used in TCP to name the ends of logical connections that carry long-term conversations. Well known services are defined by RFC 1060. The relationship between the well known services and the well known ports is described in RFC 1340.
wide area information server (WAIS)
A network publishing system designed to help users find information over a computer network. WAIS software has four main components: the client, the server, the database, and the protocol. Discussed in RFC 1625.
wide area network (WAN)
A communications network that connects geographically separated areas.
Windows Internet Name Service (WINS)
A name resolution service that runs on Windows NT Server. WINS resolves NetBIOS computer names to IP addresses for WINS clients on a routed network. A WINS server handles name registrations, queries, and releases. See also Domain Name System; IP address; WINS server.
Windows NT File System (NTFS)
A file system used on computers running Windows NT that enables users to set access control permissions on files and directories. NTFS supports file system recovery, extremely large storage media, long filenames, and various features for the POSIX subsystem. It also supports object-oriented applications by treating all files as objects with user-defined and system-defined attributes. See also file allocation table.
Windows NT Server Event Viewer
A program provided with Windows NT that enables users to monitor system, security, and application events by viewing logs generated by Event Viewer.
Windows Sockets
Windows Sockets is a Windows implementation of the widely used UC Berkeley Sockets API. The Windows Sockets API is a networking API used by programmers to create TCP/IP–based sockets applications. Microsoft TCP/IP, NWLink, and AppleTalk® protocols use this interface. Windows Sockets provides interfaces between programs and the transport protocol and works as a bidirectional pipe for incoming and outgoing data. Also called WinSock API. See also application programming interface.
WINS
See Windows Internet Name Service.
WINS server
A computer running Windows NT Server and the WINS service.
World Wide Web (WWW)
The World Wide Web has become synonymous with the Internet. However, the World Wide Web began as a networked information project developed by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). The World Wide Web is, specifically, the software, protocols, conventions, and information that enable hypertext and multimedia publishing of resources on different computers around the world.