Re: Problem getting a new XP computer to join an NT 4.0/Win 98 domain

From: Stephen Porter (stp_at_pobox.com)
Date: 11/02/04 

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 17:34:31 -0800

Hi,

I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond to your comments and
suggestions until now. I've been doing several other things,
but this is still a problem.

I understand all your points. I did a bit more poking around
and all of the computers on this network do log onto a domain,
in this case named "Domain" (just to make things confusing!).

I'm going to insert another write-up of the situation here in
the hopes that you might be able to point me further in the
right direction. As you will read, the problem seems to be
that the XP box will NOT recognize the NT 4.0 machine as a valid
domain controller. Why this should affect the XP box's ability
to "see" the server, I'm not sure. I'm hoping that you will
see this be able to respond again.

TIA.

__________________________________________
More details on the XP/Win 98/NT 4.0 network problem:

Situation: the place where I work has a very simple network
setup that has been functioning without problems for several
years--before I came on board and ended up with the
responsibility for handling the occasional glitch and other
computer-related things. There are about 9 computers on the
network. The file server runs NT 4.0 and 7 of the workstations
are running Win 98 SE. One workstation runs Win 2K
Professional. All of the computers are set up to logon onto a
domain--although they really don't have to be set up this way in
this simple scenario, at least I don't know of any reason they
should. The domain name is "Domain".

The owner of the company wants to gradually upgrade all the
computers on the network and as a first step I ordered two Dell
boxes with XP Professional on them. I'm trying to get the
first one set up as a workstation on the network and am not able
to either log on to the domain, nor am I able to see the file
server at all.

Further details: there are 3 workgroups defined on the network.
Again, I inherited all this setup and would like to
simplify/streamline and improve everything, but I want to do it
gradually and hopefully not break anything in the process.

Workgroup 1: "Domain" -- 1 member, which is the file server
itself.
Workgroup 2: "Workgroup" -- 5 members
Workgroup 3: "Office" -- 4 members

ALL of the OLD workstations see all 3 of these workgroups and
can access any shares enabled on the file server and/or any
workstation with shares defined.

The NEW XP workstation sees only the two non-server workgroups:
"Workgroup" and "Office". The XP box itself is currently a
member of the "Workgroup" workgroup, but I've tried changing it
to "Office" and "Domain" with no joy.

I was/am working on theory that in order to see the file server
the XP box needs to log onto the domain, "Domain," and have
tried to get it to do so by changing the Network ID dialog with
the radio button for setting it up to log on to a domain
controller. Whenever I set it up this way, I get an error
message saying that "no domain controller can be found" and
that's that--it just reverts back to the workgroup setting, and
I can see all the computer in the two other workgroups, but not
the file server, which is in the workgroup "Domain." (I hope
this isn't too confusing ;-). Once I feel I can work with this
without breaking anything I intend to remove these
ambiguous/confusing names.)

The people who originally set up and have worked on this network
in the past are all scattered to the winds, but I did call
someone a colleague recommended as a possible consultant. He
seemed to be well-credentialed and sounded as though he knew
what he was talking about, although he thought that our network
and company are too small for him to take on as a client, and,
frankly, he's quite expensive and only works on monthly
contracts. But he was congenial and in a nutshell he told me
that XP boxes will not recognize NT 4.0 boxes--at least as
domain controllers. According to him our only two choices in
this situation would be to revert the new XP boxes to Win 2K Pro
OR to upgrade the server to Server 2002/3 OR to possibly just
use another Win XP box as the server and make it a REALLY
simple, peer-to-peer network. I thanked him and started
thinking about this problem and recalled that I do have
experience with another company where the file server is running
NT 4.0 and it has SEVERAL XP boxes that have no trouble at all
seeing the file server and any shares on it. In this case,
however, there is NO domain to be logged onto.

So I'm not entirely trusting what the $175/hour consultant is
saying--is the "incompatibility" (which he claims MS built into
XP in order to get people to upgrade from NT servers) is domain-
related? Or is it just not true and there is some other
solution.

If he is right and the problem is related to the fact that I
can't seem to get the XP box to recognize the domain, "Domain,"
then is there some way to safely revert the file server from
being a domain controller and just change all the workstations
to simple peer-to-peer mode??

Target # 1 here is to just get these XP boxes running as
workstations with as little fuss as possible. Then we will
address the issue of adding more XP boxes at the workstations
and also buying an upgraded server. We're thinking about
getting Small Business Server 2003, although that's probably
overkill also. I would like to get a server with a RAID setup
to provide some redundancy--but that's secondary now.

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm sure the people here will
be able to steer me in the right direction on this one.