I am currently setting up a windows 2008 server to host a website with multiple subdomains, all accessible only within the lan. also, there is no active directory.

what I did is :

1 - computer name : 'web'
2 - in IIS, I added a site binding as 'site1.web' to the default web site
3 - added DNS role to the server
4 - added 'web' as principal zone in direct lookup zones (default options)
5 - added CNAME 'site1'

From a client machine, in tcpip config I added the ip address of 'web' to the DNS list in addition to the ISP DNS. (client machine ip is from DHCP)

Now browsing to 'http://web' or 'http://site1.web' works correctly.

My question is, is it possible throught additional steps in the server to have the websites accessible without requiring the DNS config in all the client machines ?

thanks in advance