Do bothExchange 2007 or 2010 support netbios domain names with periods in the name? (ex. company.com) I have inherited a network that has netbios domain name as described and found that in some rare cases this is not supported.Thanks,Paul

What you have there "ex.company.com" is not a NetBIOS Name, but a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or DNS name.Exchange 2007/2010 does not use NetBIOS anymore. Thus they don't require or use WINS.There are some co-existenc scenarioes with ealrier versions of Exchange that at least require Exchange 2007 to use NetBIOS. As to NetBIOS names: "Names can contain a period (.). However, the name cannot start with a period. The use of non-DNS names with periods is allowed in Microsoft Windows NT. However, periods should not be used in Microsoft Windows 2000 or in later versions of Windows.Naming conventions in Active Directory for computers, domains, sites, and OUs"http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909264jas

We don't have ex.company.com. We have company.com (netbios domain name) our FQDN is different. It's confusing but just the way it is. We did find that Forefront uses the "old" netbios domain name and gets confused when it sees the period in it prompting the question if Exchange will get confused too.

Agree with Jas, also take a look at below link for non supported characters in various object names... Characters That Are Not Supported for Object Names in Exchange 2007 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd285491.aspxAmit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Amit, Thanks for the response. I'm not sure if the Windows NetBIOS domain name translates into one of the things listed in the document you referenced. Any Ideas? I ask because I did install and successfully uninstalled Exchange 2010 in my environment and could not get into the Exchange Management Console (GUI based one. I still get confused) as it complained about not being able to find the object <NetBIOS domain name>\<username> on a domain controller. Before I attempt this with the released copy again I would like to have an answer to what might have gone wrong. Thanks,Paul

NetBIOS name is often same as host name or computer name of the server while FQDN or DNS name is HostName.ADDomainName.com (Note: this is AD domain name, not external smtp domain name). I would suggest you to run ExBPA to scan Exchange environment regularly and which finds the gotchas by verifying common best practices provided by Microsoft as an xml file...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com