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DNS/WINS Issue

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by susu

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Some of our users have been having an issue connecting to our Exchange 5.5 server, using Outlook 98 on Windows 9x.

When they open Outlook it sits for about 30 seconds and then times out with a dialog box asking to retry or work offline. When theyclick retry, it takes sometimes almost 10 minutes before the connection is actually made.

I ran Network Monitor on one of these computers and found that it queries DNS first for the computer name. It queries every DNS server it knows about sometimes multiple times before it queries WINS.

Is there a way to change this behaviour?

7 replies

by susu

There is a "Use DHCP for WINS Resolution" but that is not checked. I don't know where the setting is that you are referring to. Could you direct me to it?

by ebob

There is a registry item which defines the search order. Unfortunately I don't have access to my registry (or for some reason MS' KB) or I'd look it up for you.

The default has DNS before WINS (among other approaches) and you want to move WINS infront of DNS.

I saw on a network a very similar problem. Name resolution tried to hit a DNS server. If the DNS server was available, the name resolution (for those users' Exchange server) would come back quickly "not found", and the search order would progress to WINS (which would find the server, and things were fine). If the DNS server was off line for some reason, name resolution would keep trying for up to 10 or 20 minutes until it eventually gave up and started trying WINS. (Why was theDNS server off line? Because the local admin had made a mistake when setting up DHCP and pointed the default DNS server to somebody's LAPTOP! So it wasn't even a DNS server.)

A couple of quick workarounds:
1 - limit the number of DNS servers (2 should be plenty)
2 - set up a record for the Exchange server in LMHOST file (or is it LMHOSTS?)

I don't like either of these either as they become administrative overhead.

by netlion

Tie your WINS information to your DNS server. In the DNS Manager, highlight the primary zone and bring up the Properties. Go to the far right tab and give it the IP address of your WINS server. This will load the WINS entries into the DNS Cached tables and enable you to find everything via DNS. I have found most networks run very quick with these settings.

(You can do the same with your Reverse Lookup zone.)

Ed

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