The WINS service is not needed in most Windows networks but may be running either for legacy reasons, or because someone enabled it in the hope that it might fix a network issue.

It is now apparently a security risk. See here and Reg article here.

Apparently Microsoft says “won’t fix” despite the service still being shipped in Server 2016, the latest version:

In December 2016, FortiGuard Labs discovered and reported a WINS Server remote memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Server. In June of 2017, Microsoft replied to FortiGuard Labs, saying, "a fix would require a complete overhaul of the code to be considered comprehensive. The functionality provided by WINS was replaced by DNS and Microsoft has advised customers to migrate away from it." That is, Microsoft will not be patching this vulnerability due to the amount of work that would be required. Instead, Microsoft is recommending that users replace WINS with DNS.

It should be removed then. I noticed it was running on a server in my network, running Server 2012 R2, and that although it was listed as a feature in Server Manager, the option to remove it was greyed out.

I removed it as follows:

1. Stop the WINS service and set it to manual or disabled.

2. Remove the WINS option in DHCP Scope Options if it is present.

3. Run PowerShell as an administrator and execute the following command:

uninstall-windowsfeature wins

This worked first time, though a restart is required.

Incidentally, if Microsoft ships a feature in a Server release, I think it should be kept patched. No doubt the company will change its mind if it proves to be an issue.

Note: you can also use remove-windowsfeature which is an alias for uninstall-windowsfeature. You do need Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher for this to work.