Shortened domain name is same for two AD-enabled domains?

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can help me with a head-scratcher I have.

I have two AD domains. One is a mixed-mode 2000/2003 domain, called
mydomain.local, with a pre-Windows 2000 name of mydomain. The other is
a 2003-only domain, mydomain.co.uk, with a pre-Windows 200 name of
mydomainuk- These are set up for two seperate offices within the same
company, but we don't want to make them a part of the same forest.

We've successfully created a trust between the two domains, and can
browse each others' networks using an FQDN such as
fileserver.mydomain.local.

However, even though we have set up our windows 2003 domain to have a
pre-windows 2003 domain name of mydomainuk, it still appears in the
active directory search box as mydomain.

The problem that we're having is that in My Network Places->Entire
Network->Microsoft Windows Network, there's only one entry listed at
each end, mydomain, which shows the local computers on that end of the
trust.

How can we make it so that the users on the UK side can view computers
on the other side through My Network Places? This 'shortened' version
of the domain name is what appears to be causing the problem - i
thought the whole idea of using AD was to use FQDNs all the time to
stop this mess!

Thanks in advance,
James

Hi James,

What you refer to as a "pre-Windows 2000 name" is in fact NetBIOS name.
NetBIOS used to be primary name resolution service in older OS's (Win9x/Me
and WinNT).
Although rather old, NetBIOS refuses to go away (like DOS :-) .
To make NetBIOS behave accross subnets in a routed environment, you must
have properly configured WINS infrastructure.

BTW, decision to rely on FQDN type of names is a good decision.
Relying on "My Network Places" is really pain-in-the...
After all when users browse the Internet, they don't expect to see all the
servers in "My Network Places", don't they? They use URL's. The same
principle applies for accessing local resources.

Dusko Savatovic


<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> Hello,
>
> I'm hoping someone can help me with a head-scratcher I have.
>
> I have two AD domains. One is a mixed-mode 2000/2003 domain, called
> mydomain.local, with a C of mydomain. The other is
> a 2003-only domain, mydomain.co.uk, with a pre-Windows 200 name of
> mydomainuk- These are set up for two seperate offices within the same
> company, but we don't want to make them a part of the same forest.
>
> We've successfully created a trust between the two domains, and can
> browse each others' networks using an FQDN such as
> fileserver.mydomain.local.
>
> However, even though we have set up our windows 2003 domain to have a
> pre-windows 2003 domain name of mydomainuk, it still appears in the
> active directory search box as mydomain.
>
> The problem that we're having is that in My Network Places->Entire
> Network->Microsoft Windows Network, there's only one entry listed at
> each end, mydomain, which shows the local computers on that end of the
> trust.
>
> How can we make it so that the users on the UK side can view computers
> on the other side through My Network Places? This 'shortened' version
> of the domain name is what appears to be causing the problem - i
> thought the whole idea of using AD was to use FQDNs all the time to
> stop this mess!
>
> Thanks in advance,
> James
>

Dusko hit the nail on the head. My Network Places is driven by the
computer browser service, which is an NT legacy application depending on
Netbios names and LAN broadcasts. To make it work over a routed network or a
WAN requires WINS, and it can be a bit of a pain. It gets even worse if your
DCs are multihomed. If you really want to see how it works, see KB 150800
and 188001. (The KB numbers show how old this stuff is).

The Active Directory approach is to publish shared folders in AD.

Dusko Savatovic wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> What you refer to as a "pre-Windows 2000 name" is in fact NetBIOS
> name. NetBIOS used to be primary name resolution service in older
> OS's (Win9x/Me and WinNT).
> Although rather old, NetBIOS refuses to go away (like DOS :-) .
> To make NetBIOS behave accross subnets in a routed environment, you
> must have properly configured WINS infrastructure.
>
> BTW, decision to rely on FQDN type of names is a good decision.
> Relying on "My Network Places" is really pain-in-the...
> After all when users browse the Internet, they don't expect to see
> all the servers in "My Network Places", don't they? They use URL's.
> The same principle applies for accessing local resources.
>
> Dusko Savatovic
>
>
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm hoping someone can help me with a head-scratcher I have.
>>
>> I have two AD domains. One is a mixed-mode 2000/2003 domain, called
>> mydomain.local, with a C of mydomain. The other is
>> a 2003-only domain, mydomain.co.uk, with a pre-Windows 200 name of
>> mydomainuk- These are set up for two seperate offices within the same
>> company, but we don't want to make them a part of the same forest.
>>
>> We've successfully created a trust between the two domains, and can
>> browse each others' networks using an FQDN such as
>> fileserver.mydomain.local.
>>
>> However, even though we have set up our windows 2003 domain to have a
>> pre-windows 2003 domain name of mydomainuk, it still appears in the
>> active directory search box as mydomain.
>>
>> The problem that we're having is that in My Network Places->Entire
>> Network->Microsoft Windows Network, there's only one entry listed at
>> each end, mydomain, which shows the local computers on that end of
>> the trust.
>>
>> How can we make it so that the users on the UK side can view
>> computers on the other side through My Network Places? This
>> 'shortened' version of the domain name is what appears to be causing
>> the problem - i thought the whole idea of using AD was to use FQDNs
>> all the time to stop this mess!
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> James

You can publish shared folders in Active Directory? How do I do this?

Thanks for all the help with this I'm very grateful.

James

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> You can publish shared folders in Active Directory? How do I do this?
>
> Thanks for all the help with this I'm very grateful.
>
> James
>

This is very cool feature, but rarely used because:

a) it is very easy to publish shared folder in AD
b) it is not so obvious how to use this feature from client PC's

You publish shared folder from Active Directory Users and Computers console
(ADUC).
- Open ADUC and navigate to the container that contains the server with
shared folder.
- Right click container - New - Shared Folder. Give the name of shared
folder and UNC path. BTW use FQDN in UNC path.
- New shared folder is published in AD. Right click on its icon in AD and
open Properties. Click Keywords. Enter as many keywords as you like, each
keyword on a new line. This gives you opportunity to search for shared
folders by using keywords.

Now about searching.
For some reason, the option to search AD for shared folders is not exposed
in Windows XP (Professional).
You have to "uncover" it.
- On (all) users desktop, or wherever, create shortcut that calls:
Rundll32 dsquery,OpenQueryWindow

Warning - OpenQueryWindow must be capitalized like this or it won't work!

When user clicks shortcut, a query window will open.
User clicks:
Find: Shared Folders
In: Entire Directory or your domain or whatever
Fills Keywords box
Clicks: Find Now

A list of shared folders containing contents described by keywords will open
up.
User double clicks the link which will direct her or him to the appropriate
shared folder.

Dusko Savatovic