I have noticed that my outlook clients are only connecting to DC's at remote sites. Not the 2 domain controllers in the same site as the client. They are all GC domain controllers. I haven't been able to find the solution. Any thoughts?

Outlook gets a referral from the Exchange server to a DC in the Exchange server site. You can hack the registry so Outlook uses a specified DC, but you need to consider the limitations of such an approach.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 20:12:02 +0000, Ed Crowley wrote: >Outlook gets a referral from the Exchange server to a DC in the Exchange server site. You can hack the registry so Outlook uses a specified DC, but you need to consider the limitations of such an approach. Or just tell it to use the closest GC. If they're already using that then there's a problem with the response times from the GCs to the clients. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

This article tells you how. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319206Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

This article tells you how. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319206 Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." I tried that reg setting and it still does not work correctly. In fact my 2010 client is using EVERY remote site DC - just not the local's. Very weird! Any more thoughts?

Are your subnets properly defined in Active Directory Sites and Services?Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Are your subnets properly defined in Active Directory Sites and Services? Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." Yes subnets are solid. I did read something. I may have been rebooting both local DC's with hotfixes at the same time. I will try rebooting the remote PC's overnight so hopefully Exchange and clients will once again see the local DC's as the 'closest' DC's.

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:59:45 +0000, Gotwings wrote: >Are your subnets properly defined in Active Directory Sites and Services? > > >Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." Yes subnets are solid. I did read something. I may have been rebooting both local DC's with hotfixes at the same time. I will try rebooting the remote PC's overnight so hopefully Exchange and clients will once again see the local DC's as the 'closest' DC's. If you've put UseClosestGC into the registry then Outlook will use the "dsgetdcname" function (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms675983(v=vs.85).aspx) to find a GC. If that's failing to find a GC in the same AD site as your Outlook client then it's very likely that your AD Sites aren't as "solid" as you believe. Try enabling netlogon debugging on your DCs (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/109626) and look for the errors that identify logon requests that come from clients in undefined sites. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:59:45 +0000, Gotwings wrote: >Are your subnets properly defined in Active Directory Sites and Services? > > >Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." Yes subnets are solid. I did read something. I may have been rebooting both local DC's with hotfixes at the same time. I will try rebooting the remote PC's overnight so hopefully Exchange and clients will once again see the local DC's as the 'closest' DC's. If you've put UseClosestGC into the registry then Outlook will use the "dsgetdcname" function (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms675983(v=vs.85).aspx) to find a GC. If that's failing to find a GC in the same AD site as your Outlook client then it's very likely that your AD Sites aren't as "solid" as you believe. Try enabling netlogon debugging on your DCs (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/109626) and look for the errors that identify logon requests that come from clients in undefined sites. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP Actually I was using closest DC, so I changed the reg entry to Closest GC - so I am now connecting locally as I should. Whats the fix for 1200 PC's that have this behavior?

Group policy?Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:39:30 +0000, Gotwings wrote: >On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:59:45 +0000, Gotwings wrote: >Are your subnets properly defined in Active Directory Sites and Services? > > >Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." Yes subnets are solid. I did read something. I may have been rebooting both local DC's with hotfixes at the same time. I will try rebooting the remote PC's overnight so hopefully Exchange and clients will once again see the local DC's as the 'closest' DC's. If you've put UseClosestGC into the registry then Outlook will use the "dsgetdcname" function (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms675983(v=vs.85).aspx) to find a GC. If that's failing to find a GC in the same AD site as your Outlook client then it's very likely that your AD Sites aren't as "solid" as you believe. Try enabling netlogon debugging on your DCs (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/109626) and look for the errors that identify logon requests that come from clients in undefined >sites. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP >--- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP > >Actually I was using closest DC, so I changed the reg entry to Closest GC - so I am now connecting locally as I should. > > > >Whats the fix for 1200 PC's that have this behavior? How'd you set them up in the first place? Logon script? GPO? --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP