Pre-installed Windows 2003 R2 SP2 Standard edition on a Dell Poweredge T300. System is running Wins and DNS but a Linksys Router is providing access to the Internet. There are 10 user clients running Windows XP sp3. We have consistant connectivity problems where we have to re-boot the clients 2 or 3 times to re-connect to network shares. The server is running simple file and printer sharing, TCP is the only installed protocol. Once the clients do connect there are no connectivity issues. The client machines are shutdown at night and when re-started in the morning some have problems re-connecting. We have symptoms such as My Computer just opening blank with an hour glass or errors stating the network share cannot not be found. We have an older server dated about 6 years now running Windows 2000 that gives us no problems connecting from workstations. If I re-connect everyone to the old server domain there are no problems. If I connect users to the newer server then we start getting these problems. I do not have both Domains running at the same time (old Server domain and new server domain) because I wanted to be able to switch back to the old server if things do not work out. We do have Norton Internet Security running but some work stations I have scrubbed clean without installing Norton and they still experience this problem. The Server does not have any anti-virus application running or any third part services or applications running for that matter. I am looking for any tips that might lead me in the right direction to solving this problem. Thank you in advance.

SigIns, There are a good number of things that can cause this type of type of problem. After making sure I have the latest network drivers, I always find it best to start by proving the OS is solid. I would recommend doing this by booting the server into Safe Mode w/ Networking (hit F8 while booting). After you reboot into Safe Mode w/ Networking I would recommend that you use the Telnet client, from another PC, to test connections to the problem using SMB. To do this, launch a command prompt and connect to the server by IP and Port. Here is how: Telnet <ip> 445. If the screen goes black, then you connected, otherwise you will see it fail. If this works, we need to work out what service is causing the problem (after rebooting normally) is to use MSConfig (enter name at run prompt to launch). On the services tab check the box for "hide all Microsoft services". Then go through them one by one (or in programmatic groups) to work out when it works and when it fails. If this fails, and we are sure that AV is not running, then there may be a problem with the OS itself. There are some articles out there showing how to reset TCP/IP, but let me caution against that, it almost never works, and when it does other problems usually spring up later. A clean server rebuild is your best bet at this point. There is a good chance that a network trace may be the only way to work this out. If it gets to this point, and you do not have anyone to access the traces, I put contact info below you can use. Let me know how things go. If you need extra help, you can reach us at: InitialAssist@cbfive.com See my blogs at http://www.cbfive.com/blog /Jared