Hi allI'm not sure if this is in the right place but i'm sure someone will move it to the right place for me if its not. anyways....The problem i'm having at the moment is i've upgraded 2 old servers named bill and jill. All the services, software etc are now on the new server and all machines are using the new server, 100% sure of this. Now the problem is when i switch off bill and/or jill i get a lot of problems on the network i.e. word hangs, create -> new system hangs, lots of hanging :)The computers are basicallytrying to look for either bill and jill for certain things even tho bill and jill don't run anything anymore and obviously as they are switched off it trys to find them until it times out and goes back to normal. Right how do i solve this?we have about 400-500 machines and i would really like to get rid of of these 2 horrible old servers that are taking up space in my server room.ThanksJason

bump

rubbish this is in the wrong place. Can someone move it to the right place or do you want me to recreate it in the right place?

Hi Jason, Please can you give more info: OS of bill and jill as well as new servers. What roles did bill and jill have in your environment?

Both bill and jill used server 2003 standard. The services for jill have gone to a server with server 2008 installed with a server 2003 virtual machine which has the print server from jill on. Jill was the "my documents" redirect server which held everyones docs. It also had the AVon (sophos),this was all moved.Bill has been moved to a server with server 2003 standard on. Bill it seems was used for everything at one time or another but when i got to it it had wsus on it and was used as a program share repository (best way to describe it) basically just programs that could be used over the network. Not sure how many other service this was used for in its life however. On bill i have removed all roles and taken off all shares but as soon as i switch this off if i right click and go to new the menu will hang as if its looking for bill for something.

just to make sure: Have you pointed the My docs redirect to a new server in the GPO? Have you changed the mapping of the printers to the new virtual print server? Are there any GPO's, login scripts, mapped drives (from clients) or printers with paths pointing to the old servers?

Hi Jason, Since applications are looking for jill and bill, I suggest we create two DNS alias for new servers so that we dont need to wait for the timeout. Open your DNS console, right-click your Domain, choose new Alias(CNAME), type jill or bill in the Alias name box, type new server in FQDN box. Click OK. Note: you need to remove bill and jill from DNS console before add alias. After that, try to test on clients. Thanks. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

HI JAson, If you are going to use the method described by Mervyn then you must disable strict name checking on the new servers: Windows Server 2003 To resolve this problem in Windows Server 2003, complete the following steps: Create the CNAME record for the file server on the appropriate DNS server, if the CNAME record is not already present. Apply the following registry change to the file server. To do so, follow these steps: Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe). Locate and click the following key in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters On the Edit menu, click Add Value , and then add the following registry value: Value name: DisableStrictNameChecking Data type: REG_DWORD Radix: Decimal Value: 1 Quit Registry Editor. Restart your computer.

thanks for the help everyone. i will give this a try as soon as i'm allowed to :)I thought it was a dnsproblem along theway but iwas sure it wasn't as simple as removing the old server names from the list.What does the disable strict name checking do?

Hi, In Windows, SMB has a feature "strict name checking" which would not allow connection to a CNAME. For more information, please refer to the following article. Connecting to SMB share on a Windows 2000-based computer or a Windows Server 2003-based computer may not work with an alias name http://support.microsoft.com/kb/281308 Thanks. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.