Hi, i'm a noobie in windows servers but i would like to change it. My first question is not issue directly related to server, but I think it's important. Where to put server in home LAN? I mean, does the server have to be right after router, following server and then the switch to enable connect other computers or it doesn't matter? Second question is similar to first but first, I guess have to tell you how my LAN is set. There is router purchase from UPC. To the router I connected desktop computer, server and wifi switch. Yestarday after I connected my not configured, just installed trial version of server 2008R2 to the router I couldn't go to internet with my laptop, that connects to the wifi switch. I guess I have to set network connection on server (which I will do as soon as I will have time), but why It effects laptops when server is connect directly to router and wifi switch too. Thank you for answer and forgive me for my english :-)

Depends on what you want your server to do. For example if you want to use the server as a Firewall/VPN/Gateway you should have 2 NIC's (works with one, but not recommended) one that connects to the WAN (internet) and one NIC that connects to the LAN. For your scenario, if you want your server to be lets say an AD, file server, etc..: You have the router depending on the model you have lets say 1 WAN port and 4 LAN ports. You connect the Internet cable to the WAN interface and if you have no more than 4 hosts you can connect them directly to the router but I don't reccomend this because it will add overhead to the router. So, instead connect a standard switch to one of the LAN ports. Swithces range fro 5 ports to 48 or more, depending how many hosts (machines) you have in your network. So you connect the switch to one of the LAN interfaces of the router, next you connect the hosts, computers, servers, accesspoints to the switch. If you configure AD/DNS on the server make sure every host uses the IP addres of that DC/DNS as primary DNS server in the Ip properties. Secondary DNS can be a public DNS like 8.8.8.8. Don't forget about Forwarders. I hope this helps a bit.

It helped a bit. Thank you for quick respond. But If I may, I will have additional questions. 1. If I want to make for example Firewall or VPN as you suggested, can server be file server too? Not only for LAN, but accessible from WAN too? 2. Consider my network settings set now, meaning router, switch and hosts connected to them. Why server effects connections of my laptops to WAN when they are connected to switch, switch to the router and server is connected directly to router? DNS record of laptops should stay the same, because their connection doesn't go through server as mention for setting server for VPN or Firewall. Was it some kind of glitch and server didn't effected laptops or I have to set DNS record of laptops to DNS records set in server. Then again, why it effects laptops when the server isn't set as gateaway. I hope it makes sense. :-)

1. You can configure your server anyway you like. Having a file server for example where you would keep company documents, and "exposing" it to the internet is not quite a recommended best practice. It would be an vulnerable target to attacks. 2. What other roles services are running on the server? DHCP? Make sure you don't create a network loop somwhere in the network. To better tshoot the issue post from a client an unedited ipconfig /all, route print, nslookup.

Depends on how the router is configured. Try connecting the server to the switch port instead. Also check to see if the router you are using supports VPN. Lots of routers today have VPN capabilities. So you could configure the router to act as a basig firewall/ VPN router (if it has the abilities).

1. My vision is to make for my relatives secure home file server where they can access their documents from work or school and other documents available only when their are connected in home LAN. But it's another topic :-) Thank you for answer. 2. I didn't install any services. It's just new install of server, didn't have chance to do anything. I wanted to try to connect remotly, but when I connected server to LAN, relatives started complaining about inaccessibility of internet. I restarted router, didn't help. So I disconnected server from LAN and it fixed the problem. So I thought and I still thinks, that server had something to do with that. If there are default services running on server, don't know. Didn't have chance to check it out. My first though was that I need to set network settings IP, DNS etc. But I don't understand, why it would efects laptops.

Depends on how the router is configured. Try connecting the server to the switch port instead. Also check to see if the router you are using supports VPN. Lots of routers today have VPN capabilities. So you could configure the router to act as a basig firewall/ VPN router (if it has the abilities).

Setting my network connection settings solved the problem. Thank you for you time. Have a nice day.