WINS still

[sharyn]

Has anyone successfully upgraded their nt 4.0 PDC to a Win2k DC, still had WINS running on the remaining nt 4.0 BDCs and the new Win2k DC and managed to get it working right?

Only about 1/3 of my clients are showing up in network neighborhood and I can't figure out any rhyme or reason to the boxes that are showing up.

I have already reinstalled WINS on the new win2k DC, reconfigured the replication partners, and I am still coming up with the event id 4121:

"WINS's Replicator could not find any records in the WINS database. This means there are no active or tombstone records in the database. It could be that the records being requested by a remote WINS server have either been released or do not exist. "

Yet, when I click on each individual server by owner, I can see all the machines and all the IP address.

Sheesh I am totally lost as to what to do next. HELPPPP! Please!!!!

 

[Guest_imported]

A question how many wins servers do you have?
A single wins server can handle 10,000 clients, why not consolidate all your wins servers to the one Win2k system running wins, with one backup.

 

[sharyn]

We have 5 remote sites. I have a WINS server on each remote site and one backup for this site as well.

Ironically enough, the clients at the remote sites are showing up in network neighborhood, it's the clients at this site here that arent.

Sharyn

 

[GlenJohnson]

Make sure each wins server has only it's own wins address in wins. I made the mistake of putting both wins address into both wins servers and really kind of mucked it up. Servers only like to use there own wins address. Confuses them otherwise. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
gjohn76351@msn.com

"The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it".
Epicurus (341-270 B.C.); Greek philosopher

 

[sharyn]

Funny you should mention this..I just went back to my nt 4.0 BDC which is my secondary WINS server up here at this site and changed it, going to hit the remote sites next.

I didnt configure these servers ...they were done before my time and it looks like each WINS server has the ip address of itself for primary and the one up here for secondary.

Funny though how this was working perfectly before I upgraded the PDC to win2k.

I'm open to other suggestions if u think of any

Thanks!
Sharyn

 

[GlenJohnson]

Not really, because when you upgraded to w2k, there no longer are any pdc's. Only DC's which are equal in there own eyes. Good luck. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
gjohn76351@msn.com

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931); US inventor.

 

[sharyn]

Yeah..but the only win2k server I have is the old PDC. All my other domain controllers are still nt4.0 BDC's.

My understanding was that the new win2k DC was supposed to act as a PDC emulator for the BDC's and that they werent supposed to know anything was different!

And, by the way, my local site here still isnt showing up in network neighborhood, even after making sure the WINS servers up here are pointing to themselves. How long will that take to see a change, if there is going to be one?

Sharyn

 

[GlenJohnson]

Don't know, but I do think your right about W2K and nt. Can you open a browser and type \\servername and see if it shows up? Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
gjohn76351@msn.com

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931); US inventor.

 

[sharyn]

Yes, I can and yes it does. I am not having any actually connectivity issues (that I know of), it's just ticking me off.

And, of course, my users are lost because 1/2 of them can't see the machine name that hosts the shares they access.

I have walked countless through the workaround of just opening a browser window and typing the machine name, or doing a search/find for the machine name and accessing it this way but they want their network neighborhood working correctly.

I do too, seeing as how I am planning on upgrading all my BDC's to win2k DCs and don't want any nasty surprises down the line because of something that wasn't fixed now.

Sharyn

 

[brontosaurus]

Hi Sharyn. Are you working on different subnets, or are all your clients on the same subnet? If you're using different ones, would you mind trying something? Get a hold of the tool BROWSTAT (I believe it's in the Admin.pak), go to a machine at a couple of different subnets and run BROWSTAT STATUS. Even if you're only on one subnet, run this from a couple of the clients anyway. What I'm getting at is this: the population of Network Neighborhood is essentially a function of browsing\broadcasts. It may be possible that some of your subnets are not reporting hosts due to a lack of a local Master Browser, or it may be that your new DC (which should be the domain Master Browser) is just not picking up these broadcast reports from the local subnet browsers...

 

[sharyn]

The subnet that is giving me fits is the one that my DC is on. The remote offices are on different subnets and they seem to be fine. My site here, where the new DC is, is all on the same subnet.

I would imagine my new DC would be the new master browser. If that is the case, then *it's* the machine not picking up the broadcasts from the clients on its local subnet.

Can I download this admin pak from the web?

Soon as I find it, I'll try it..thanks!

 

[sharyn]

Never mind. I found it..browstat.exe off the win2000 cd server tools.

I will run this tomorrow..and let you know what I have found. I did go into the registry on my new DC and change the value of the key IsDomainMaster to true.

Sharyn

 

[GlenJohnson]

Is the computer browser service running. I had a lot of problems with w2k pro machines had this turned on. I have turned them all off, and disabled in the registry. (Looks like I need to do some research on my network) I only have one subnet, but the registry on both dc's says is master browser = no. This might have something to do with my connectivty issues. Thanks. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
gjohn76351@msn.com

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931); US inventor.

 

[NYR]

I am getting the same sort of thing, so I am actively researching and will follow this thread as well. I created a LMHOST file and installed it on my of my remote VPN office computers, and after that I was finally able to browse this network. But I am unable to see them.

GlenJohnson:
Where are you turning this off on the W2K pro machines and where are you disabling it in the registry? I might try that also.
Thanks

 

[GlenJohnson]

Services, right click on my computer and select manage. Down towards the bottom you'll find services and applications. Click the plus button to get to services, and you want to disable computer browser on the pro machines. In the registry its. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Paramaters] "IsDomainMaster"="False" "MaintainServerList"="No". Hope that helps. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
gjohn76351@msn.com

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931); US inventor.

 

[sharyn]

Good morning Brontasauras,

I have run browstat on my server but Im not exactly sure what im looking for..

here are the results...I'm not sure how to interpret these though...

Status for domain FDC on transport \Device\Nbf_{B6E5900F-72B4-430C-BF6A-BEA9706B
42FF}
Browsing is active on domain.
Master browser name is: LASERVER
Master browser is running build 2195
2 backup servers retrieved from master LASERVER
\\PP1
\\LASERVER

This information is correct. The master browser should be the laserver and PP1 is my nt 4.0 BDC on this subnet.

However, I am getting several of these messages before the above one, and Im not exactly sure what they mean...

Status for domain FDC on transport \Device\Nbf_NdisWanNbfOut{F397278E-B5A9-43A4-
B907-11E63DCC24FC}
Browsing is NOT active on domain.
Master name cannot be determined from GetAdapterStatus.

Status for domain FDC on transport \Device\Nbf_NdisWanNbfIn{0DA42A3A-C250-461F-A
CDE-1AE1B224D743}
Browsing is NOT active on domain.
Master name cannot be determined from GetAdapterStatus.

What exactly does that mean..master name cannot be determined from getadapterstatus?

The first message says browsing is active and does point to the correct server.

There are a ton of switches to this tool, what else should I check?

Thanks in advance,
Sharyn

 

[sharyn]

Something else I've noticed here...now I'm seeing that sometimes network neighborhood is complete, depends on when you pull it up. (this is an improvement). For example, I can click on it, see all the machines on all the subnets. Then, later on, I can refresh it and my local subnet has dropped off again. (about 50 machines)

If this was DNS, i'd say it was incrementing incorrectly and an older version was being replicated.

Is any of this making any sense to anyone?

Sharyn

 

[brontosaurus]

It looks like your DC is multihomed or has some other kind of network adapters configured that are NOT picking up browser requests, but may be responding to network broadcasts. True? Check this, go into the properties area of your network connections on the DC. Go to Advanced (on the File Menu bar), then Advanced Settings. Make sure your DC's primary NIC is listed first, and has File and Print sharing enabled...

 

[GlenJohnson]

Try seeing if there's a bad nic in your system. If there is and it's sending out bad broadcasts, it could be blocking access. Had a brand new server come in with 2 nics, and one was going bad. Users couldn't log onto the domain at times after I brought it online, it kept getting worse until they could NEVER log onto the domain. Stumbled accross the bad nic because I rebooted my 3 servers, and when the new one was off, the users logged onto the domain. That's the only reason I stumbled accros it. Disabled the nic, everything peachy. You may have a pc which is being turned on later which would explain why sometimes it's all there and later it's not. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
gjohn76351@msn.com

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931); US inventor.

 

[sharyn]

The new win2k DC only has one NIC but it did have two IP addresses assigned to it, the internal one (192.168.x.x) and the external one (207.190.36.xx).

The machine is no longer being used for public DNS or as a mail server so I removed the 207 address from the NIC.

Glenn,

It's not just one machine that isn't showing up, it's about 50 of them, it's my whole local subnet. I have about 150 client machines on this subnet, and my remote sites. Machines from my local subnet are showing up sporadically, sometimes they are there in Network Neighborhood, sometimes they arent. It's not just servers either, it's clients as well.

Bront,

Is there something else I need to do, perhaps in the registry, to make sure the new DC knows it's not to listen or respond or try to do anything with the removed 207 address?

The irony about this is, EVERYTHING was working perfectly before I upgraded this durn machine to win2k! I have 6 more Nt 4.0 BDC's to go, and don't want to touch of any of them yet until I get this resolved.

Thanks for your continued help guys!

Sharyn