First off I would like to apologize if this is in the wrong forum. If this is the case, please redirect me. I have a few laptops that are connected to a domain. While on the domain, they see each other fine; however, when connected to another network, they cannot see each other. If I attempt to ping testcomputer, the machine looks for testcomputer.domain. Is this a setting that I have accidentally set on one of my servers? Or, is this a WinXP setting? Thanks in advance, CCain

Most likely this is because it knows it is part of a domain and the other clients are part of the same domain so it is appending the DNS suffix at the end.

testcomputer.domain (domain like microsoft.com) is the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). If your client computer want to ping testcomputer, it will add domain as a suffix and then it will try to solve testcomputer.domain. So, that is perfectly normal. Let's suppose now that you want to solve DNS names in domain1 and testcomputer is member of that domain. In this case you should add a DNS suffix for domain1 on the client computer from which you want to ping testcomputer.domain1 and in this case it will ping it. So, you can change the the used DNS suffixes like you want. Remark: resolutions using only testcomputer is called NetBIOS resolution and it needs a WINS server. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

>>>If I attempt to ping testcomputer, the machine looks for testcomputer.domain This is normal behavior and is too be expected >>>Is this a setting that I have accidentally set on one of my servers? Or, is this a WinXP setting? Read the article below, it will explain the settings and where they are configured. http://networkadminkb.com/kb/Knowledge%20Base/DNS/How%20the%20Client%20DNS%20Settings%20work%20to%20resolve%20DNS%20names.aspx