This is an old post. But I recently ran into very similar problem and found a Microsoft Technet article that clearly explains this very strange phenomenon that Microsoft introduced in their new Windows 2008 and later servers where attempts to manage DNS servers located on Windows 2008 (or later) server from older clients would produce the error messages that TIMBO343 mentioned in his/her opening thread. That is when one tries to connect to a DNS server located on a Windows 2008 (or later) server via the server's name (say SERVER) one gets "The server is unavailable. Would you like to add it anyway?" And if one types in the FQDM one gets the message "Access was denied. Would you like to add it anyway?"
Here is the explanation from Microsoft and ways to get around it:
Windows Server 2008 R2 DNS Servers can only be managed by computers running Windows Server 2008 or later
