Topic: Domain join problem

[davidebellei]

Hi everybody.
Here's the problem.

I have a sme 6.0.1 running as PDC with domain VILLANI
I have XP and 2000 workstation correctly logging to domain.

Today happened that a collegue, not knowing the difference between domain and workgroup, removed a Windows 2000 workstation from the domain VILLANI and created the workgroup with same name VILLANI. Then reboot the machine.

What I have done (after scolding him) is to try to join the machine to the domain again.

At that point windows 2000 says it can't find the domain (win message talks about a DNS problem, so I checked if everything was ok, and it was The DNS ip address on the win2000 machine is the SME address! The SME host name is SERVER and if I try "ping server" it replies correctly)

I tried different ways.
- Change the workgroup name
- Change the machine name
- Change the ip address
- Change the user logging locally (I tried admin with same SME admin's password)
- Browsed internet and found other solutions: none worked

Do any of you have any idea to help me re-join the machine to the domain?

Thank you.
Davide

[ajkeane]

I have had a similar issue and have found that running the reg key located in home/e-smith/files/server-resources/regedit and also viewable from http://(your-domain)/server-resources/regedit/ will fix the issue. You should then be able to join the domain.

Tony

[davidebellei]

Now I can't try it because our offices are now closed.
I'll try monday.
But if this is the correct solution, why does the machine worked well al the first joint?

Thank you

[ajkeane]

Unfortunately I cannot say.

It is just something that I have found will fix theses sort of issues. I have had machine actually stop being able to see the domain and this has always fixed them. I have not been able to isolate the reason for them stopping.

Tony

[davidebellei]

Thank you Ajkeane, but it did not work.
Any other idea?
The problem, in two words, is:
a win2k machine cannot join the domain

Thank you again

[Brave Dave]

Have you checked that a firewall is not active - perhaps norton/trend with a firewall

[raem]

davidebellei

Check dmay contrib area for the samba howto. It details how to delete machine accounts etc etc. It may be the answer you need.

[steever]

If a computer is member of workgroup XXXXX, you cannot change it to a member of the domain XXXXX - it just doesn't work.  So what you do is you change the workgroup name to YYYYY, reboot, change to domain XXXXX (make sure you have no mapped drives), reboot, and now you are back in the XXXXX domain.

To summarise:  you can change from XXXXX domain to XXXXX workgroup, but you cannot change from XXXXX workgroup to XXXXX domain.  You need to change the name of the workgroup first.

Hope this helps.

[davidebellei]

Thank you steever, I tryed that, but did not work.
Domain is VILLANI. So, after having changed the workgroup to VILLANI, I then changed it to PIPPO (that is the italian translation of Goofy ) and then tried again to join to domain VILLANI (everytime restarting windows). Nothing...

At the end I reinstalled windows on the machine, and everything worked.
I think there was some problem with the antivirus or some other programme that created interferences on network communications, even if I removed all them.

Thank you all for your advice.