Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig hostwindsdns.com. NS
Answer
hostwindsdns.com. 1 NS dns4.hostwindsdns.com.
hostwindsdns.com. 1 NS dns2.hostwindsdns.com.
hostwindsdns.com. 1 NS dns1.hostwindsdns.com.
hostwindsdns.com. 1 NS dns3.hostwindsdns.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
dns1.hostwindsdns.com. 1 A 162.159.24.242
dns2.hostwindsdns.com. 1 A 162.159.25.110
dns3.hostwindsdns.com. 1 A 162.159.26.160
dns4.hostwindsdns.com. 1 A 162.159.27.118
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0