I have a Windows 7 Pro workstation on the network which is a part of the WORKGROUP. A few 2003 Servers one of which is a Domain Conroller. All the Windows XP clients have no problems connecting to any of the servers. Windows 7 can't see the 2003 server which is a DC (can't see shares on that server, can't join domain, can't connect to SQL Server on it and can't even see the web site on the server). I can ping it by ip address, but nslookup wouldn't see the domain. Can't see it on the Nework either, the weird thing is sometimes it would find it but just for a short period of time. I would suspect some dns configuration problems. If I put servers ip as a DNS server internet wouldn't work (on XP stations it does). Trying to nslookup the domain name would give me unknown server and ip adress of my router. Any suggestions?

All of your internal client's DNS settings must use the internal DNS server (DC) for their DNS client settings. If your Win 7 computer is pointing to external DNS servers, it will not work. If your XP systems are working even though they are pointing to external DNS servers, they are most likely failing back to NetBIOS to resolve the DC, which would have to be on the same subnet, or use a WINS server. My recommendation is for you to have all your clietns point to the internal DNS server. Then configure your DNS server either to continue using its "root hints" file for external name resolution, or configuring it for forwarding and point it to your ISPs DNS servers. Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.

The problem is setting the internal DNS as primary for Win 7 doesn't work, as if it doesn't exist. Same thing for XP systems works just fine. Here's the weirdest thing, right after pointing primary DNS on Win 7 to DC, i run nslookup 3 times within a few seconds apart get 3 diffirent results: ------------------------ C:\Users\User>nslookup <servername> .<MyDomainName>.local Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.0.124 *** UnKnown can't find <servername>.<MyDomainName>.local: No response from server ------------------------ C:\Users\User>nslookup <servername> .<MyDomainName>.local Server: <servername> .<MyDomainName>.local Address: 192.168.0.124 Name: <servername> .<MyDomainName>.local Addresses: 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.124 ------------------------ C:\Users\User>nslookup <servername> .<MyDomainName>.local DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.0.124 DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. *** Request to UnKnown timed-out ------------------------ and it stays intermittent after that but mostly just dns times out. Win 7 is not part of a domain and I don't need it to be, but if i try and join the domain, it would prompt me with user name and password, then would throw an error: "An attempt to resolve DNS name of a domain controller in the domain being joined has failed..."

and the other thing i've noticed is a longer response time for the server: C:\Users\User>ping 192.168.0.124 Pinging 192.168.0.124 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.0.124: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=128 Reply from 192.168.0.124: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=128 Reply from 192.168.0.124: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=128 Reply from 192.168.0.124: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=128 opposed to any other server: C:\Users\User>ping 192.168.0.240 Pinging 192.168.0.240 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.0.240: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 192.168.0.240: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 192.168.0.240: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128 Reply from 192.168.0.240: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

No errors on the server or on the workstation. i have 2 exactly the same one on the network with the exact same problems. If I leave it for i don;t know 15 minutes, so that it goes into screen saver mode, and then try to nslookup the domain or open a share it works just fine for about 15 seconds and then stops as if something kicks in that was dormant a service or something. It's the weirdest thing that doesn't make any sense.

While 29ms is not a huge concern, it may be an indication of an issue if your typical response time is less than 1ms. You may want to check the switch port to see if any errors are being logged, also check to see if there is a port mis-match on the duplex settings, and I would check the server itself to see if the latest network drivers are installed. any errors in the system log on the server? Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.

Sounds like something is getting into the arp table that souldn't be there. When you are away for 15min and come back do this: 1. start/cmd 2. arp -a > output1.txt Then do yout nslookup stuff again. After that do the above again but redirect into output2. txt. Compare the two. See anything different?

everything is the same except for the server it looks like that: output1: Internet Address Physical Address Type 192.168.0.124 00-1c-23-d0-c5-9c dynamic output2: Internet Address Physical Address Type 192.168.0.124 00-1c-23-d0-c5-a0 dynamic Does this make any sense?

So i couldn't add a static ip using arp: c:\>arp -s 192.168.0.124 00-1c-23-d0-c5-9c The ARP entry addition failed: Access is denied. I found the solution around it on the internet, so i did that: c:\>arp -d 192.168.0.124 c:\>netsh interface ip add neighbors "Local Area Connection" 192.168.0.124 00-1c-23-d0-c5-9c Worked like a charm. Thanks a lot! Why would that happen though? Hope tha's sufficient to avoid problems later.

You may have another node on the network configured with the IP 192.168.0.124, with a MAC of 00-1c-23-d0-c5-a0. Are you able to log on to the switch and look at the MAC tables and locate the port where the MAC, 00-1c-23-d0-c5-a0, is actually coming from? If not, do you have any asset managment software that may have record of this MAC address? I do not think this is a fluke, and I would not recommend that you leave the static Arp entry in place. The good thing is that you determined that there is a node that is responding to that IP with a different MAC. Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.