join domain from XP prof.

[Magne Guttormsen]

Hi.
We have a problem joining our XP prof. clients to a domain
on a 2K server. All Win2K clients are joining just fine.
Any different in joining a Xp client and a Win2K client?

Magne

 

[Ron Lowe]

Hi.
We have a problem joining our XP prof. clients to a domain
on a 2K server. All Win2K clients are joining just fine.
Any different in joining a Xp client and a Win2K client?

Magne

What errors do you get?
Without the exact error, it's not possible to diagnose the problem.

Hazarding an educated guess.....
The most common problem is that it can't find the domain controller,
and that usually indicates a DNS problem.

XP differs from previous versions of windows in that it uses
DNS as it's primary name resolution method for finding domain
controllers:

How Domain Controllers Are Located in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314861

If DNS is misconfigured, XP will spend a lot of time waiting for it to
timeout before it tries using legacy NT4 sytle NetBIOS.
( Which may or may not work. )

1) Ensure that the XP clients are all configured to point to the local
DNS server which hosts the AD domain. That will probably be the
win2k server itself.
They should NOT be pointing an an ISP's DNS server.
An 'ipconfig /all' on the XP box should reveal ONLY the domain's
DNS server.

( you should use the DHCP server to push out the local DNS server
address. )

2) Ensure DNS server on win2k is configured to permit dynamic updates.

3) Ensure the win2k server points to itself as a DNS server.

4) For external ( internet ) name resolution, specify your ISP's DNS server
not on the clients, but in the 'forwarders' tab of the local win2k DNS
server.

On the DNS server, if you cannot access the 'Forwarders' and 'Root Hints'
tabs because they are greyed out, that is because there is a root zone (".")
present on the DNS server. You MUST delete this root zone to permit the
server to forward unresolved queries to yout ISP or the root servers:

HOWTO: Remove the Root Zone (Dot Zone)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=298148

The following articles may assist you in setting up DNS correctly:

Setting Up the Domain Name System for Active Directory
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;237675
HOW TO: Configure DNS for Internet Access in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300202

 

[Magne]

We get an error "A domain controller for the domain okdomain could not be
contacted":

The domain name okdomain might be a NetBIOS domain name.
If this is the case, verify that the domain name is properly registered with
WINS.
If you are certain that the name is not a NetBIOS domain name, then the
following information can help you troubleshoot your DNS configuration.
DNS was successfully queried for the service location (SRV) resource record
used to locate a domain controller for domain okdomain:
The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.okdomain
The following domain controllers were identified by the query:
ok_procasso.okdomain
Common causes of this error include:
- Host (A) records that map the name of the domain controller to its IP
addresses are missing or contain incorrect addresses.
- Domain controllers registered in DNS are not connected to the network or
are not running.

In the XP client the first dns server is the PDC for domain "okdomain".

I just found out that the DNS/AD server has netbios disabled. We changed
this to enabled and now I can
join the XP client to the domain ?????????????????????????

How is this possible? You said that xp use DNS for join? And the Win2000
clients was working without netbios on the
server???

Magne

 

[Leythos]

We get an error "A domain controller for the domain okdomain could not be
contacted":

Your DNS is wrong, you need to setup DNS properly and the problem with
disappear.

If you can ping the server by name, such as server.mydomain.lan, then
you DNS is working correctly. Without DNS working correctly you will not
be able to join.

 

[Magne]

We can ping the DNS server corectly.
And if you look in my error message:
(DNS was successfully queried for the service location (SRV) resource record
used to locate a domain controller for domain okdomain:
The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.okdomain
The following domain controllers were identified by the query:
ok_procasso.okdomain) you can see the server respond!!!!

The strange thing here is that we now can join xp clients with netbios
enabled on the server.
And Netbios disabled only win2000 clients.

We have checked the DNS server for a lot of things, but find nothing wrong.

Magne

 

[Leythos]

We can ping the DNS server corectly.
And if you look in my error message:
(DNS was successfully queried for the service location (SRV) resource record
used to locate a domain controller for domain okdomain:
The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.okdomain
The following domain controllers were identified by the query:
ok_procasso.okdomain) you can see the server respond!!!!

The strange thing here is that we now can join xp clients with netbios
enabled on the server.
And Netbios disabled only win2000 clients.

We have checked the DNS server for a lot of things, but find nothing wrong.

Your DNS still looks wrong if I understand what you typed.

The server is "ok_procasso.okdomain" that is a single name domain, it
doesn't properly resolve in DNS without a hack to the reg. Your server
name should be ok_procasso.okdomain.LAN or something like that.

I made the mistake of doing a single name domain once, it was impossible
to join the XP stations to it without doing a HOST file entry for the
domain and also setting up the DSN settings at each computer.

 

[Magne Guttormsen]

Thanks for the tips. I now see that single name domain can be a problem.
Do you know what to do to set up the network properly for our single name
domain??
And why win2000 can join without netbios on the server?

It is a big job to change the domain name :-(

Magne