Strange Freeze in Explorer when Accessing Network

[beasleyd]

Hey everyone. Thought I'd come to the best website on the planet for asking questions in plain English so that a helplessly confused IT admin (me) can get something fixed.

Anyway.

Problem:

Our current network consists of 40+ machines all on XP attached to one NT4.0 PDC and one NT4.0 BDC. There is also a Win2k3 server on the network, but currently only as a member (soon the network will be upgraded to 2k3 and Active Directory). Everything is tied together through Dell managed switches. For some reason, at least once per day, when someone tries to access a network share (be it a share on the NT server or the 2k3), explorer will stop responding for 30 seconds up to a minute. However, if I manually force quit it, the restart explorer through the task manager, I can immediately browse that same network.

This is quite a pain. I believe this also happens every now and then when someone runs a network application - a long pause before the system finally does anything.

As I said, it's intermittent, but seems fairly consistent with the "at least once per day" or "only when you're in a hurry".

Please help! How can I get rid of this severe nuisance?


-David

 

[mattjurado]

If your 2003 server is coming online soon to run an ad domain, then I wouldn't put too much effort into this. 2000 and XP clients browse properly when there is a 2000/2003 server running DNS on the network.

You could enable WINS on one of your NT boxes, and make sure all the XP boxes are set to use the WINS server, this may help. However, if you're going to the new server shortly, you'll be doubling the work, because you'll want to remove the WINS settings, and point the DNS on each machine to your 2003 server.

By the way, if you haven't setup DNS before on 2000/2003, simply create your ad using dcpromo, install dns, and when its done, the server should have one dns entry, its own IP. Go to the DNS tool, the properties of your server, and on the forwarders tab, enter your ISP's DNS servers. All workstations should only have one DNS entry, the server, and the server will forward all requests for the internet and resolve them properly.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[h5n1]

i argeed with mattjurado.....is WINS setup by any chance right now?

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greg

 

[beasleyd]

Sorry about my delayed response... I thought I would receive an e-mail when someone replied to my thread!

No, it doesn't look like we're running through a WINS, at least not on the workstation front. All of our IPs are assigned (whether dynamically or statically) at a central server way up north. Once we upgrade to 2003, however, we will be running our own DNS down here.

So Matt, you believe it's just the typical XP - NT4.0 communication error that's going on here? If so, I can wait the couple weeks before we move on. I just want people to experience a whole new look and feel once we move to 2003 and AD... and I'd like all (most... many...) of the old bugs to be gone. Bugs relative to the ancient OS that is.

 

[mattjurado]

Yes, I wouldn't worry about it, things should be fine once you are running DNS. Since your network is not hundreds of desktops. Assign static IPs, don't use DHCP on your desktops. Let us know how it goes.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.