Can't join Vista 64 Business PC to domain

[asflyboy]

I have Windows Server 2003 running a small network. One of the PCs is running Windows XP Pro, it works fine. A Mac Book Pro is also working fine. Another PC is dual booting to XP Pro and Vista Business 64. The partition with XP Pro works fine. The Vista 64 partition does not. I get the following error message when I try to join it to the domain while running Vista 64:

"An attempt to resolve the DNS name of a DC in the domain being joined has failed. Please verify this client is configured to reach a DNS server that can resolve DNS names in the target domain."

I am not very experienced with Windows Server. Any suggestions?

[mannyo]

it sounds like you have a misconfigured DNS/DHCP server in your 2003 domain.

XP authenticates using a different method to Vista, and Vista needs a correctly configured DNS/DHCP to work.

Edited May 26, 2008 by mannyo

[asflyboy]

it sounds like you have a misconfigured DNS/DHCP server in your 2003 domain.

XP authenticates using a different method to Vista, and Vista needs a correctly configured DNS/DHCP to work.

Would it be possible for the XP machines to work correctly if DNS/DHCP was not configured correctly?

[mannyo]

I believe so,

XP will revert to using NETBIOS in the event of having DNS issues, I dont think Vista does this.

[asflyboy]

Found the problem.

Active Directory was screwed up. Deleted AD and re-installed. Works fine now.

Somehow I messed up AD by trying to add a Mac to the domain. Got that worked out as well by using the checklist for Macintosh services.

Thanks for the help.

[markallensimmons]

I believe so,

XP will revert to using NETBIOS in the event of having DNS issues, I dont think Vista does this.

XP does not install NETBIOS by default. A client or a domain controller on the network optionally uses the NetBIOS resolver service to query WINS servers, attempting to locate DomainName [1C] entries to complete the logon process. WINS is not installed by default on a 2003 server.

I have the same problem, and I have been searching the Internet for answers. I have over 200 XP Pro clients on a Windows 2003 Server Standard. All clients use static IP addressing. I wanted to test Vista on our network. So I installed Vista x64 Ultimate, but I have the same problem everyone else keeps having with the DNS issue. There is an obvious difference in how XP and Vista communicates with DNS, but I have not yet narrowed down the problem. It is a DNS problem on the server, but it is something that I believe needs to be changed to be compatiable with Vista. I haven't found any evidence that it is something you need to change on the Vista client. Most everything I have found points to SRV records, and how they need to be setup versus the "automatic" setup 2003 performs during the wizard.

[markallensimmons]

Found the problem.

Active Directory was screwed up. Deleted AD and re-installed. Works fine now.

Somehow I messed up AD by trying to add a Mac to the domain. Got that worked out as well by using the checklist for Macintosh services.

Thanks for the help.

We have a handful of Macs on our network. Usually, all you need to do is install the Mac services on the server network card, and disable a couple of digital signed group policies to allow a Mac to connect. Removing and re-installing AD will present a problem down the road.

[Stoic Joker]

Ya know it seems like 90% of the people that have trouble with an AD domain created the problem themselves by mis-configuring DNS. The most common error is putting your ISP's DNS servers in the workstation network configuration. Being that your ISP knows nothing about the completely unregistered private internal domain both the DNS lookup and the domain join operation fail together.

The other classic boo-boo is putting the ISP's DNS servers in the Domain Controller's network config, which simply results in a DC that can't find it's own a**. DHCP (if used) fails shortly there after and the fun ensues.

In a single server domain ALL workstations point to (and ONLY to) the Domain Controller. The DC Uses itself (and ONLY itself) to resolve DNS. If you want to configure DNS forwarding for external names open the DNS management console (dnsmgmt.msc), select properties of your DNS server, and add them to the forwarders tab there (and there only).

If you don't add forwards server 2k3/2k8 will both default to the internet root servers alowing you to still "get to the web". The key is making sure the server can identify itself, because if it doesn't know "who" it is it can't identify everybody else either...