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No domain server available to validate -

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13 replies

by deltree 3 views

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We have a number of roaming laptop users who travel between sites. Each site is a seperate subnet with a DHCP manager on site.
The laptops are mostly W95 with a few W98.
The problem is when the client boots with its IP lease from the previous site visited, it is not following the correct process of being denied lease renewal (DHCP NACK) then reinitializing and going through the IP lease process. Instead, it is stubbornly holding onto its current lease which is not valid for the subnet.
This results in the error message "no domain server was available to validate your password".
The work around has been for the client to manually release the IP lease (through WINIPCFG) prior to shutting down and moving on the the next site.

Does anybody know of a more automated method of releasing the IP upon shutdown, or better yet a solution to the issue?

I know you can add a reg entry in W98 to auto release IP lease on shutdown. But I'm not sure if this workaround works in W95.

Any ideas are appreciated!

13 replies

by buckle

In our school we have 500 laptops and set the DHCP lease expirey time to 5 minutes, enough time release leases after one lesson ready for the next class. We also have a number of laptops that are on all day every day with no problems, it seems thatthe lease is renewed after 5 minutes with no messages or other issues.

by jdfcomputer

Easy fix for win9x machines

simple registry entry required

add these to the registry using regedit

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\DHCP
Value name: ReleaseLeaseOnShutdown
Type: DWORD
Value data: 0x00000001 (1)
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Shutdown
Value name: FastReboot
Type: STRING
Value data: 0

by deltree

Have tested this, to no avail. Same results. There is something else going on here.

Note: This does work on a hubbed network. It does not work on a switched network.

by deltree

Thank you for your input. While implementing Winsock 2 did not fix the problem, it did offer me an option I did not think of.

by deltree

This looks like something similiar to hardware profiles in NT, only for W9x.
It would probably work, but would require more work than simply using the winipcfg tool to get around the problem.

I'm closing this issue as unresolved.
I have come tothe conclusion that Microsoft has written a poor DHCP client portion of the TCP/IP protocol suite. Our W9x clients will regretably have to continue using the winipcfg utility.

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