Windows 2000 Domain Configuration Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter James Howe
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J

James Howe

I don't know if this is the best newsgroup to post this to, if there is a
better place, please let me know.

I work in a small office which has a collection of about a dozen or so
Windows 2000/XP machines on a network. Our domain is controlled by a
Windows 2000 server machine. Most of the machines on the network have
folders, printers or drives which are shared and should be accessible by
anyone who has logged in to the domain. Sometimes things seem to work ok,
but sometimes resources are not accessible. For example, I might log on
to my Windows XP box and use Windows Explorer to view the resources
available on a particular machine. Sometimes things just open up. Other
times, nothing happens for a long period of time and then a login dialog
appears. If I type in my domain name and password, I'll get an error
telling me that that ID has already been tried. I'll often times end up
using a different login id just to get access to the resource I need to do
my work. Sometimes it seems that it will display the dialog and if I just
cancel I'll be able to see the resources. It's also not just me that has
these problems. Other computers in our domain have the same behavior.
The only thing which might be common, is that it seems to plague the
Windows XP boxes which are trying to access resources on Windows 2000
boxes although that might be a red herring. Anyway, has anyone else seen
this sort of behavior, and more importantly does anyone know how to fix
things to that things work as expected.

Thanks.
 
James,

Happy New Year!

I am sorry that no one has responded to your post yet. I hope that you are
no longer having this problem and that my response is not needed. However,
with 'voodoo administration' the problem usually comes and goes!

My first question, just to be sure that we are clear, is as follows: is this
a WIN2000 Active Directory Domain environment? You specifically stated that
'our domain is controlled by a WIN2000 Server machine' and 'if I type in my
domain name and password' so I will continue based on this supposition. I
just want to be clear that you are not working in a WORKGROUP
environment....

My second question to you is as follows: is everyone logging on to the
domain and not to their local computer?

My third question to you is as follows: what type of name resolution are you
using in your environment? Due to AD being involved, you would/should be
running DNS. Anything else?

My fourth question to you is as follows: how are your clients getting their
IP Addresses? via a lease from DHCP? Is that 'DHCP' a WIN2000 DHCP Server
or a Firewall/Router? And I assume that if DHCP is used that additional
information is being provided ( such as - in the case of WIN2000 DHCP -
Option 003, Option 006 and Option 015 )?

I would also want to question why anything is being stored on the local
computers. I would hope that the reason for this is due to limited Hard
Drive space on the server! That can/should be easily resolved. Please
understand that I am not trying to tell you how to run your environment. In
the several AD environments that I help to administer no one saves anything
'work related' to their WIN2000/WINXP clients. Everything is stored on the
server. We make use of shared folders and permissions for storage.
Naturally, logon scripts are used to map the necessary network drives. I
would consider taking this approach. This also significantly helps to
ensure that you have a valid backup of all work related files and folders.

Now, to your problem: check the permissions on the shared resources on the
local machines. If it sometimes works but sometimes does not ( and when
not, you have to use a different user name and password ) check to make sure
that the permissions are not being changed. Just one thought. I would
venture to ask whether the local shared resources are being shared on a user
by user basis or on a group basis?

HTH,

Cary
 
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