Running nbtstat -A for a router returns a strange name

Question

I'm following the Life Hacker guide about monitoring network traffic. It suggests that I check the devices on the network, and it returned 5 devices:

192.168.1.53    a0:1b:29:66:b1:18   (Unknown)
192.168.1.66    7c:05:07:0d:d1:81   (Unknown)
192.168.1.71    20:54:76:92:b4:42   (Unknown)
192.168.1.75    c8:d3:a3:f4:47:6b   (Unknown)
192.168.1.254   a0:1b:29:67:15:68   (Unknown)

I was unsure what "192.168.1.66" was so I used nbtstat -A 192.168.1.66 to get the device name (it was nothing to worry about).

However, I then ran nbtstat -A 192.168.1.254 - that's the first router in the network.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.254

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [10.0.2.15] Scope Id: []

           NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

       Name               Type         Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    PNHUB1         <00>  UNIQUE      Registered
    PNHUB1         <03>  UNIQUE      Registered
    PNHUB1         <20>  UNIQUE      Registered
    ☺☻__MSBROWSE__☻<01>  GROUP       Registered
    HOME           <1D>  UNIQUE      Registered
    HOME           <1E>  GROUP       Registered
    HOME           <00>  GROUP       Registered

    MAC Address = 00-00-00-00-00-00

What concerned me was this line:

☺☻__MSBROWSE__☻<01>  GROUP       Registered

I have never seen emoji used in official device / program names - neither from Plusnet who brand the hub, BT who make the hub or Microsoft which is what I would assume "MS" stands for.

I have a second router as well - the same make and model as the router at 192.168.1.254. That occupies 192.168.1.53 and I sometimes change the IP.

When I ran nbtstat -A 192.168.1.53 it returned this:

       NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

   Name               Type         Status
---------------------------------------------
PNHUB1         <00>  UNIQUE      Registered
PNHUB1         <03>  UNIQUE      Registered
PNHUB1         <20>  UNIQUE      Registered
HOME           <1E>  GROUP       Registered
HOME           <00>  GROUP       Registered

No mention of MSBROWSE.

So what is ☺☻__MSBROWSE__☻?

Solution

It only means it is the Master Browser for the group in question. Groups and subnets are not identical: you may have several distinct groups on a given subnet, which is one possible reason why you may find several Master Browsers on the same subnet.

Actually, if a certain groupd does not have a Master Browser on a given subnet, then the groupd will not be visible.

If interested, you can find a longer discussion on a Microsoft site, here.

I believe you may relax.

Comments

[Andrew Morton]

Those are not "emoji", they are characters in one of the sets shown at Character Tables.

[Tim]

@AndrewMorton Which happen to display (to me) as WHITE SMILING FACE and BLACK SMILING FACE.

[Andrew Morton]

So the character codes in the name are 01, 02, 95, 95, 77, 83, .... 02. There is no Unicode involved, and nothing to worry about.

[Tim]

@AndrewMorton Why does it include that then? it looks like emoji?

[Andrew Morton]

You are just as capable as me at searching for why the Master Browser has a name with those characters in it ;) Just because they look like emoji does not mean they are, they are just what appears in that character set to visually represent those values. Perhaps it would be more fun if they used a character code 7 (BEL) (ASCII table) and beeped when displayed, but that would become not fun rather quickly.

[Tim]

Why the emoji? cmd rendering issue?

[MariusMatutiae]

@Tim Yes. I have never seen one, ever, nor do I see it in your post.

[Tim]

I've attached an image into the post.

[Tim]

I'm talking about the smiley faces in the name. What are they?