dtav

Hi, I have a small home network with AD installed on a W2K server and 3 PCs networked. I have shared all the computers. All users and computers are registered in AD and they all use the server for DHCP and DNS and access internet via forwarders. My problem is that I can access the server files and folders from the other PCs but I cannot access the PCs from the server. Nor can I access between PCs. After a while, a message pops up saying I don not have permission to access the resource. I must have omitted a step in the AD installation Can anyone help? thanks DT

SOLVED!! A new NIC card, and everything works fine. I guess sometimes we dont see the wood for the trees. The LAN is now working correctly with AD providing IPs through DHCP and DNS resolution. If anyone reading this wants help deploying Active Directory, I'm now a Guru haha Thanks for all your help Clutch cheers, DT

I´m pretty sure I have tried this, done so many things its hard to remember! I logged in as administrator on the local machine, and put in the direct IP, subnet and gateway settings, and it was the same. One thing just occurred to me, I didn't change the DNS settings. I could change them to the DNS server of my ISP and then in theory the puter should bypass the server altogether. I'll try it. Meanwhile, to re-cap, I have been reading up on all the links you posted regarding AD. Thanks, loads of useful information, and sometimes its hard to find what you want on the windows web pages. So Im now confident that AD is correctly configured. If it still doesnt work with the above test, then we must be dealing with an NIC or cable issue, dont you think? The symptoms are no internet access, and if I use windows explorer to navigate the file structure in one of the other PCs (either the server or the other workstation, I can see them both perfectly,) after 2 or three levels windows explorer freezes. DT

Hi Thanks for your advise so far. So, as I said I was getting fed up with this business so I flushed DNS following your/and MS instructions, removed the computer from AD on the server. Then, on the offending PC, I have re-formatted the drive, and now installed a new copy of Windows XP pro. ( was still concerned about not recognising the full size of the new drive, and there were no BIOS updates available for my PC , HP pavillion,) So I joined the domain, updateed the NIC driver, disabled the XP firewall (I read that it can interfere with LAN connections) Installed office etc etc. Then with breath held hit the IE icon. Gues what...just the same IE starts to load a page, but doesnt complete the connection Frustrating or what! BTW, the other PC on my little LAN works fine. Even better after the DNS flushing. So it has to be a problem with A) The NIC or cable the router (acting as Hub) cant be the PC..everything new and it even recognises the full drive size now!) cant be the server, because both it and the other PC both work fine. When exploring the LAN I can navigate around the computers OK. any ideas?

When looking at the DNS console, and after expanding "forward Lookup zones", all 3 pcs are there with the name "pcname.domain.domain" Ive done an ipconfig on the server, and a curios result appeared, in that there wqas no dns name or computer name, only the ip addresses. The server is configured with a static IP, subnet and gateway in the TCP/IP properties. DNS server is pointing to itself (ie 192.168.1.1) Is this right? Basically Im fed up with this after so many hours trying to sort it out. Isnt there any more radical way to resolve it? I initially installed AD for interest and self education, but its turning out to be a pain in the A***. What happens if you un-install AD The server would revert to a stand alone server I suppose, but would all the DNS and DHCP and security settings be reset. This is what I need to do I think. eliminate all the old configuration and start again.

THanks clutch, sorry to say that when I checked all these things (first time id been there) they were already as you said. So no luck there. DT

There's another issue that might be the source of the trouble, which is that the new hard drive is still showing as 137GB when in fact it is 160GB. According to Seagate documentation, and MS, the full drive capacity should be recognised once the OS is updated with sp4. This has not happened. Maybe this is causing the puter to not function properly

Thanks Clutch, Im slightly confused about your answer though. First, here's a breakdown of the IPconfig result: My server is 192.168.1.1 iget Host name....correct Primary DNS sufix...domain.domain..........correct node type................mixed.?? (dont know what that means) IP routing enabled........no..(is that right?) WINS proxy enabled.........no search list for DNS suffix....domain.domain DOMAIN Ethernet adaptor Specific suffix DNS connection.....DOMAIN Desription..................realtek bla bla bla Ethernet NIC Physical adress...........00-08- etc DHCP enabled ...........yes Automatic config enabled......yes IP address..........192.168.1.120...(address this machine always gets) subnet mask....255.255.255.0 gateway.......ip of router dhcp SERVER 192.168.1.1 DNS server 192.168.1.1 All seems correct to me..can you shed any light on this? "make sure that you are using secure updates for that zone (it will need to be AD integrated, and not simply "primary"" I dont understand this. Where do I access this setting ? Another point: If I access the folders/drives on the server, I can see them, but its very slow as I explained before. If I try to access the ws FROM the server, I get an error "access denied" or "network path not found" Although the icon for the machine appears in "my network places" I checked through the event viewer, and there are some alerts that refer to the trust relationship failing. Thanks for your help.. DT

Dr_Grey..this site you suggest offers no information about my problem, and it asks me to pay for a potential solution. There is nothing to suggest that the members are any more competent to resolve problems than anywhere else. NT compatible is by far the best technical forum on the net with thousands of members compared to a few hundred or less in most others. Furthermore, im a firm believer in the exchange of assistance and knowledge as the best way to resolve my own problems and those of others.

tahnks. There's no icon in AD users & computers. The computer name appears correctly in the computers folder. In DHCP it also appears correctly with the full domain name, and the assigned IP with the lease of 7 days In DNS, the individual pcs do not appear. I haven't checked the event viewer fully yet. I'll do that and come back. I was focussing on possible hardware issues with the new hard drive. cheers DT

HI, I have a similar newtwork by the sound of things, and maybe you could check a few points. The server needs to have a static IP address, and the subnet and gateway configured in mynetworkplaces/properties/network/TCPIP/properties. You should then point it to itself for DNS server. Ie put in the static IP you chose as the DNS server. Then in AD/DNS, go into properties and select DNS forwarding and put in the IP addresses of your ISPs DNS servers. On the work stations, in mynetworkplaces/properties/network/TCPIP/properties, you should have selected "obtain an IP address automatically" They will get their IP from the DHCP server. Then you put in the IP of your server for the DNS servers. The PDC cannot use its own DHCP server. I found this site very helpful www.wown.com

HI, I have a small network with 1 W2k server and 2 w2kpro work stations. Active directory enabled on the server, DHCP active and DNS active with DNS forwarding for internet connection. Connected via a ADSL router. The router has DHCP disabled, with the relay option selected to pass DHCP requests to the server. NAT is SUA only. My problem is this: all was fine till one day recently, one of the WS collapsed on me. continuous blue screen crashes, and refused to boot half the time. So, I replaced the hard drive with a new 160GB seagate. Formatted everything, put the old drive back in as a slave, (+CD/DVD ROM) put it all back together again, and re-installed w2kpro. Everything OK so far. Then I deleted the old user and computer from AD. Created a new user account, added it to the PC, and everthing should be OK. But, although I have successfully logged on, and I can see the network, and the other PCs, something is wrong. I updated with SP4, and updated the NIC driver. (all machines have 1 realtek NIC) So the problem is internet access. When loading IE, initially it goes fast, and the dialogue says, web site found, waiting for reply, then it starts loading, but gradually slows down and stops before completing the page. Same on any site. The same happens when trying to access shared folders on the network. Initially, I can open shared folders on the server,but the deper I go into the file structure, the slower it gets. I cant transfer files over the network. The other WS is fine, and Ive looked in detail at the configuration of the 2 user accounts, and I cant find any difference between them in active directory. Any ideas? Thanks in advance DT

I'VE FIXED IT! In case you're interested, the answer was to DISable Routing and remote Access Service in Active Directory Works like a charm! thanks for your help anyway

Thanks Peter, Ive studied these carefully, and my understanding is that it means that I must specify a unique internal number for each machine and then a common external number. Ive done this, but still doesnt work. Do you know if Active Directory is involved? I have AD installed on the server machine, and in the network configuration options, Active directory has options for IPX settings. Should it be enabled as a router?

HI, Im trying to set up IPX protocol on a home network of 3 PCs. One has W2Kserver the other 2 have W2Kpro. I have installed the protocol via My network places/properties on all 3 machines, and I have defined the frame type of 802.3. I have further defined the internal and the external network numbers. All to 00000000 for the time being. I found that the 2 workstations can communicate correctly (Using dxdiag to test the connection) but the server will not. I then found after reading the MS documentation that the W2K server will not accept an all zero internal network number, so I changed it to 00000001 and the workstations, as I read that the network numbers must all be the same (although its not clear if that should be the internal network number or the external or both) The server still does not connect with the others. Any ideas? I must have missed some parameter, and after reading up Im still not clear where the fault lies for W2K server to communicate with W2K pro using this protocol. Is this a WINS issue? or NetBIOS? Thanks in advance for any assistance DT BTW..all machines communicate fine via TCP/IP and normal file and print sharing is achieved. One bog standard ethernet NIC on each machine. They are linked via a 3com router, which also gives adsl internet access. The server has DHCP and DNS forwarding activated (standard Active Directory installation)