Network problems with Windows XP Pro

P

Paul Durdin

I have a small network consisting several Win XP Pro Machines and a Win 2K
Domain Controller using AD. Everything has been fine on the network until
recently, now i am getting the following problems;

1. I cannot print, or connect to a network printer. I can see the network
printers (attached to the server and other machines) when i browse using the
'Find a printer in the directory', but i cannot attach the printer - i get a
'Windows cannot connect to the printer' error. If i try to browse using the
other options, or enter the printer names directly i again get the 'Cannot
connect to the printer' error. Trying to print to a printer that is already
attached, and which used to work, now gets a 'Cannot connect to printer
error', or (depending on the application) simply no message at all. Note
that most machines are able to print.

2. Mapped network drives: at least two of the machines have started to show
Mapped Network drives as 'Disconnected Network Drive'. If I click on one of
these drives I can 'open' the folder and access all of the files / folders
therein, however the 'disconnected' label remains.

3. Browsing the domain: This now dosnt work. The domain is listed, but
apparently i have no permission - despite being domain admin!. If I try to
map a drive a find that I cannot browse the domain, however I am able to add
a mapped drive by entering the full path \\server\sharename, but still the
'disconnected' label remain on the new mapped drive.

The machine with most problems was built from scratch a few weeks back and
is fully patched
with all the latest updates. As I said before is has worked fine up until a
couple of days back.

As I said everything worked fine until recently. The only thing that I have
done recently is to uninstall Norton Internet Security and install Symantec
Client security and the Microsoft AntiSpyware, but I these symptoms existed
on some machines before I did this. I suspect that some windows protocol is
being blocked - but i am at a loss to know where to start looking.

Any help would be gratefully received.

regards

Paul



4. The only other thing that
might be related is that when I test the dns server with dcdiag I get the
following message;


DC Diagnosis

Performing initial setup:
Done gathering initial info.

Doing initial non skippeable tests

Testing server: mydomain\myserver
Starting test: Connectivity
myserver's server GUID DNS name could not be resolved to an
IP address. Check the DNS server, DHCP, server name, etc
Although the Guid DNS name

(xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx._msdcs.mydomain.net) couldn't
be

resolved, the server name (myserver.mydomain.net) resolved to the
IP

address (x.x.x.x) and was pingable. Check that the IP address is

registered correctly with the DNS server.
......................... myserver failed test Connectivity

Doing primary tests

Testing server: mydomain\myserver
Skipping all tests, because server myserver is
not responding to directory service requests

Running enterprise tests on : mydomain.net
Starting test: Intersite
......................... mydomain.net passed test Intersite
Starting test: FsmoCheck
......................... mydomain.net passed test FsmoCheck

Can anyone give me some advice here?
 
G

Guest

I don't have the answer but am experiencing the same problem and have another
symptom I noticed. I also have a small network with Win2k Server, Win2k
workstations and 3 new WinXP workstations. The XP machines can log in and
will work fine however after a period of inactivity can no longer access the
server or shares on peer machines. These are new machines. The network is
still working because ping and name resolution work but the event log seems
to indicate the workstation cannot find the domain controller even though the
user was able to log in after a reboot. I have spent many hours looking for
the answer. I have seen that others have this problem but there have been no
answers.
 

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