dns problem - com entries

[maark]

Can't find an answer so asking for help -

I have host (A) records setup on the dns server - e.g. http://www.webjohnsmith.com which point to an IP address of an internal server running apache - so when an address is typed in on a school machine then it will go to the apache server which will load the right site created by a student.

All working fine on XP/server 2003 for last year.

On windows 7 machines these dns settings do not work - when you try and ping or browse to the site you get could not find host. You can ping these sites from xp or server 2003 machines but not from win 7 or server 2008 machines.

The entries appear on the dns server under forward lookup zones under the domain name under com.

What is different in win 7/server 2008 that stops the dns working?

Have tried disabling IP6 and all protocols except IP4 also turned off firrewalls but to no avail - if I put the entry in a local hosts file it will work but don't want to do that for all machines.

cheers Mark

Edited June 8, 2011 by maark

[ChrisH]

Try nslookup on both OS and see if it doing anything different.

Maybe windows 7 is more picky. Have you setup a zone for webjohnsmith.com and made www a cname or an A record for that IP or have you just done the whole thing as an A record?

Edited June 8, 2011 by ChrisH

[SYNACK]

Probably a dumb question but are the DNS servers set the same on each lot of clients, 7 - XP.

[nicklec]

Windows 7 has a different default behaviour than XP, we had this with one of our internal servers I think there is a policy under DNS client somewhere, a quick google found this but cant remember exactly:

 

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> DNS Client -> “Allow DNS Suffix Appending to Unqualified Multi-Label Name Queries”

[maark]

Thanks for help with this.

NSlookup gives same results on both. Win7 resolves the address ok but pinging gives could not find host - though can ping IP address of server ok. DNS settings same on XP/Win 7.

They are setup as A records only. Going to try zones and nicklec's suggestion and update.

[maark]

Edugeek comes up trumps again.

For Windows 7 machines alter two computer policies:

Allow DNS Suffix Appending to Unqualified Multi-Label Name Queries Enabled

Primary DNS Suffix Devolution Enabled

I also had problems with local proxy settings not always being picked up - I think I had too many in the default domain level - removed a few and added the right exception in - http://www.web* in this case and now working.