Windows 7 domain/network issues

[CHiLL]

On our new Windows 7 computers, we aren't able to browse for them on our classroom management software (NetSupport v10.5) or ping them.

It appears that the computer cannot remember our domain correctly. They are joined, and connected to say, "example.local". However, it seems to get 'confused', and think it is connected to "example.local 2", and change from knowing it is a domain network to thinking it is a public network.

 

The computers still load the profiles and group policy fine, they work as normal, but we are not able to communicate with them across the network. If we disable then re-enable the network adapter, it works again. The computer thinks it is back on "example.local" on a domain network, and we can ping and see it on NS.

 

Any ideas what could be causing this?

[cromertech]

dhcp or dns would be my first guess. Do you have 2 domain controllers and are they both on the same active directory schema? What server version are you running?

[CHiLL]

IP addresses are dished out via DHCP. The computer is setup in it's set location, so DNS issues shouldn't be a problem. (Kind of outside my knowledge here).

We have 5 DCs, which all share the same AD schema. All but one of our DCs are running Server 2003, the other is running Server 2008.

[sted]

hows the firewall set by default ping etc wont work on win7

[CHiLL]

The firewall has been specifically disabled by GP.

[cromertech]

Can you use gpresult on one of the example.local 2 machines and find out which DC it's getting it's policies from. If there is a difference it could be a replication issue maybe. (bit confused by this though)

 

If the connection is set to public have you disabled the firewall on this profile as well? Win 7 has three profiles domain public and something else but I have the firewall disabled on all three for domain desktops.

[CHiLL]

The firewall is turned on for Public and Private networks, only disabled for Domain network. So that will fix the fact that we can't see the machine on the network, but doesn't answer why it is turning into a public network instead of domain.

 

I'll run gpresult a bit later when the computer in question is free. That also ties in with another Windows 7 issue, which I'll post in a different thread.

[Michael]

This does sound like a possible DNS issue. I would check which DNS servers are listed in DHCP. Are the Win7 machines connecting wired or wirelessly?

[CHiLL]

There is only one DHCP server, but there are 5 DNS servers (each of the DCs).

 

All the machines are wired.

[CHiLL]

It seems to be when the Ethernet cable is first connected, before it is joined to the domain, it auto-detects what network it is on. It gets "example.local" from DNS, but can't establish whether it is trusted or not, so sets it as Public, as in the most secure. Joining the domain should sort that, but somehow it doesn't, until the network adapter is reset.

[CHiLL]

yup its must b the cable connector problem u should change it 1st then i guess there will be no problem or it can be not properly inserted in ur router or switch.....

It isn't a cable problem, because it has happened in 11 different rooms so far, which are using two different switches, one of which is a core switch. (By the way, we are a school enironment_

[cromertech]

Under security setting in group policy (Computer settings/Policies/Windows settings) there are network list manager policies. You can check that one of those isn't set or force your domain to display the schools name instead

 

see screenshot as I had a similar list of networks