Navigation pane Entry

I’m showing a listing ‘MININT-TGA-TGA1D1C’ in my navigation pane #1. Do any on this forum have any idea what this is all about? My 1st search of MININT came up with some thing related to the Cuban Ministry #2 screen. After using all letters in quotation marks I got the 3rd screen of no results. Doing more searches, after switching back to Google search from Bing there was some information about pictures, photos and/or images of different kinds; JPEG .GIF, BMP, PNG. etc. etc.

The ‘MININT-TGA-TGA1D1C’ is showing under your Network so this indicates that it is a device which is being recognized and connected to your network. Have you added any new network devices?

No, I'm the only user of this computer; network still shows after I did a system restore, but that is all. I have no idea why the other stuff started showing up. I let my daughter pay some bills online, but that was several days ago that she used it.

The name MININT-xxxx is used by the WinPE environment when it is booted. The 'mini' part indicates 'small' and the 'NT' part comes from 'Windows NT'. The random digits are added so that no two machines have the same name.

The names are being generated and registered by Windows PE. When it starts, it acquires a DHCP address as normal and for its own internal purposes generates a random computer name of the form "minint-*". The classic Windows networking services will then register their names as per normal using WINS.

Computer names like minint-xxxx.(domain) are registering in the WINS database and in DHCP. | Symantec

It means you have recently booted a machine on your network from a WinPE environment, possibly on a usb, possibly by booting a PC to Advanced Startup. One possible WinPE boot usb could be a Macrium Recovery drive, another could be a Windows 10 Recovery Drive. Once a PC's machine name has appeared on your network it can persist for some time after the machine has been turned off. It takes a while for WINS to realise the machine no longer exists.

Learn something new everyday! Thanks Bree

Thanks Bree your explanation was very informative although I didn’t understand it all. I took some electronic theory about 60 years ago in the days of vacuum tubes long before transistors & integrated circuits. I never had any formal training in computer science, just hands on training. My 1st computer was an old dos with a thick manual of dos commands, a real dinosaur. I gave up on it until my next computer; a Dell running XP.

oldyeller38 said:

Thanks Bree your explanation was very informative although I didn’t understand it all....

Basically, if you boot a PC from a usb, say to install Windows or boot it to run the recovery options (either from a recovery usb or the Advanced Start up option) then you are running a minimal version of Windows known as WinPE (or the related WinRE). This mini-Windows requires a machine name while it is running, so it makes up one for itself, always starting with MININT.

If the PC is connected to your network at the time this name may be seen by your other PCs, or by the same PC when it reboots into Windows 10 (because there is often a delay in updating the list of visible machines after one is turned on or off). This list of names is held by one machine on the network, known as the Master Browser. Only one machine can be the master browser and if you have several PCs they hold an election to choose which one it will be. But even if you only have one PC there are still two available machines on the network, your router can be the master browser if there are no others available.

Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline....
...Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a set of tools based on Windows PE to help diagnose and recover from serious errors which may be preventing Windows from booting successfully....

Windows Preinstallation Environment - Wikipedia