I am not sure if this goes here but this is my first post. I have been doing IT for over 20 years now and I can normally find a solution to many of my own issues but this one I am stumped. I recently received a small job to set up some windows 7 machines on their network of old xp machines (Dell GX 240' 260'and 270's i know they are old) that has a server (server 2003 r2 standard x86) that is running a SQL 2005 Server (not express the full server). When we plugged in one windows 7 machine all of the connections and mapped drives worked fine. When a second machine is placed on the network they see each other but can not see the server and the server can not see them. Now this is what I have done so far:
All windows 7 machines have Static IP's, IPV6 has been disabled on both windows 7 machines, home group is turned off, file sharing is on and the permissions for the drive being shared are set to everyone for now (The mapped drives are on the server), I also set the LM & NTLM on the windows 7 machines (NTLMv2 is not allowed on the network right now). All files sharing setting are turned on with auto discovery, but the encryption is set to the lower one (40 or 56 bit one not the 128 bit), password protected sharing is turned off, and all of the latest updates are installed.
Now during this whole process the windows 7 systems have connectivity to the outside internet no problems it is the internal network (which is a simple work-group for sharing the SQL database with the workstations). Other than that each machine is stand alone. We are using an external DNS server that is provided by our internet provider. All of the same settings on windows XP Pro SP3 seem to work fine for connecting to the server and the internet. All we want to do is get the windows 7 machines to connect to the mapped drives on the server. There is no need to transfer files from one machine to the next its all on the server. What I am wondering is should we make a domain using a registered dns name and redirect it to the external dns server for internet and add the DNS to our internal server for the internal network? I am kind of lost I have had plenty of networks with windows 7 in the past, but they were in domains with multiple DNS servers. To me this looks like someone didn't know what they were doing and just made a huge file sharing network because a website told them a SMB network doesn't need a domain until you have more than 50 pc's. (what I was told by their awesome IT guy 😛 lol) Mind you there are multiple sites all connected over the internet with t 1 lines, none of which are site to site pipes so the remote locations connect to the main location using IIS is what I was told. I know creating the domain will not affect the other locations since IIS is handling them on the other end. (Cisco Pix router, Adtran for the T-1 modem, and various switched all dumb (I did have them upgrade the switches from your standard home switches to Netgear Commercial grade ones (the Blue all metal hubs 8 port). I just dont know where to go on this one I feel tapped out and just dont know where to search anymore. Also here are the specs for the server and the new workstations:
The server is a Dell Power-edge 2900 tower type with a Xeon 53xx quad core cup and 12 GB of ram, the rest is default configs.
The workstations are HP DC5700 mini towers with Core 2 Duo's e6400 CPU's, 2 GB of ram, and the rest is a default config. Please help I will be eagerly awaiting your response.
All windows 7 machines have Static IP's, IPV6 has been disabled on both windows 7 machines, home group is turned off, file sharing is on and the permissions for the drive being shared are set to everyone for now (The mapped drives are on the server), I also set the LM & NTLM on the windows 7 machines (NTLMv2 is not allowed on the network right now). All files sharing setting are turned on with auto discovery, but the encryption is set to the lower one (40 or 56 bit one not the 128 bit), password protected sharing is turned off, and all of the latest updates are installed.
Now during this whole process the windows 7 systems have connectivity to the outside internet no problems it is the internal network (which is a simple work-group for sharing the SQL database with the workstations). Other than that each machine is stand alone. We are using an external DNS server that is provided by our internet provider. All of the same settings on windows XP Pro SP3 seem to work fine for connecting to the server and the internet. All we want to do is get the windows 7 machines to connect to the mapped drives on the server. There is no need to transfer files from one machine to the next its all on the server. What I am wondering is should we make a domain using a registered dns name and redirect it to the external dns server for internet and add the DNS to our internal server for the internal network? I am kind of lost I have had plenty of networks with windows 7 in the past, but they were in domains with multiple DNS servers. To me this looks like someone didn't know what they were doing and just made a huge file sharing network because a website told them a SMB network doesn't need a domain until you have more than 50 pc's. (what I was told by their awesome IT guy 😛 lol) Mind you there are multiple sites all connected over the internet with t 1 lines, none of which are site to site pipes so the remote locations connect to the main location using IIS is what I was told. I know creating the domain will not affect the other locations since IIS is handling them on the other end. (Cisco Pix router, Adtran for the T-1 modem, and various switched all dumb (I did have them upgrade the switches from your standard home switches to Netgear Commercial grade ones (the Blue all metal hubs 8 port). I just dont know where to go on this one I feel tapped out and just dont know where to search anymore. Also here are the specs for the server and the new workstations:
The server is a Dell Power-edge 2900 tower type with a Xeon 53xx quad core cup and 12 GB of ram, the rest is default configs.
The workstations are HP DC5700 mini towers with Core 2 Duo's e6400 CPU's, 2 GB of ram, and the rest is a default config. Please help I will be eagerly awaiting your response.
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