Win Server 2008 R2 setup problems

aldebaran

New Member
I have recently upgraded our office network with a Win server and switched from a workgroup bases LAN to a domain; However, I have run into a few issues that I still can't overcome:
1. the shared drive on the server, and the server itself are not visible on the network after I switched routers; I have a working network at work and after testing with a spare router (drive vas available for mapping and server visible on the test network) i connected the server to the router and it is not visible to other computers
2. routing the internet connection through the server; I have two NICs, one setup with the static IP provided by our ISP and a 2nd NIC for LAN connection; I installed RRAS service, set it up the best I could but it is not routing, i.e. apart from the server no other computers on the LAN has internet access; currently I share the internet through the router which has 14 switch ports and 2 WAN ports

Any ideas how I can fix the 2 issues?
Thanks.

PS I am not an IT professional
 
upgraded our office network with a Win server

Is this server: Hyper-v, 12r2, 12, 8r2 or 8?

switched from a workgroup bases LAN to a domain

So the other computers are now on the servers domain instead of their old workgroup?
This also begs the question why... how many devices are in this system and why did you switch to a domain system?

i connected the server to the router and it is not visible to other computers

Is the old router running dhcp... does this new server have the same ip address range as the other computers on the network i.e. if you ipconfig on the server and get 192.168.0.10 and the over computers have say 172.168.10.20 then they can't talk to each other.

apart from the server no other computers on the LAN has internet access

Is that by design or you just havn't got it working yet... (by default with windows) the computers will be able to get internet once they join the domain.

I share the internet through the router

Do you have any control over this router i.e. has the router been set to give your server it's static ip address as by your ip provider?

___

A network map of the system you have now and/or want it to be would really help as there is a lot of missing info here.
 
it is an 8R2 server
I could not make internet work running through the server; I have DHCP disabled on the router; all IPs are assigned by the DHCP running on the server; everything works well except the server is not visible on the lan; all devices attached to the LAN can ping each other; I can map the shared drive on any client if I enter its address manually, like \\server\share, but it is not visible; on the server I can see only one workstation attached to the LAN, but each client can see all other devices, less the server.
 
PS I switched from the workgroup to the domain as an exercise and to add scalability; we own a domain and in the future we might run some services from one of our servers. At this time I have 6 machines attached to the wired and wireless LAN and 1 network storage device.

PS And I do not expect anyone to offfer solutions but some useful suggestions how to make it work; it would be an easy way to fix it hiring a consultant but at this stage I prefer to get my feet wet and fix it myself.

PPS: all the machines on my LAN run either win XP or win 7 Pro and are DELL Precision workstations of different vintages.
 
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Fair enough… Thoughts & screenshots;

1. What rolls are installed… main one I’m looking for is dns as you need that so that the computers know where the server is. The default address should be the servers’ internal ip and not the default local which the wizard will put in if you didn’t adjust it. Example something like 192.168.10.10 is ok but 127.0.0.1 will cause you no end of issues down the road.
rolls.png

2. They can see each other by ping and the server… a good start, but are they on the domain? Ping and even access to shares does not in itself confirm this.

Open the server and “active directory users and computers” open the domain icon and find “computers”… any computer that has ever been on this domain will be listed here.
computers.png


3. The shares has a few options so;

a. Open Shared by “computer management”… shares listed here can be seen by other computers on the network.
shares.png


b. Open Shared by “server management” … shares listed here can be seen by other users on the domain.

hiddenshares.png


In both cases a share with a $ will be hidden and Server 8r2 (by default) turns off network detection to windows 7 machines.

c. As you can find the shares already your final choice to make is the domain connection type and there are two main picks:

C1. Track/ connect by computer… on a small network like yours the advantage is simplicity i.e. only 7 computers so you can make a group policy that maps the server shares automatically as these computers login to the server (which can also happen by auto)… the xp machines require some extra mucking around but its still doable.

C2. Track/ connect by users… this does take more time to set up but you can then centralize the documents i.e Fred logs in the computer 1 and saves a file to his “my documents” folder then moves to computer 2 and the files are waiting for him on that machines “my documents” folder… again the xp machines pre-date this stuff making extra mucking around needed.

Other thoughts: Server 8r2 is already well out of date so that’s not going to give you much future padding… I get you still have xp but any new machine you add later will be at least 7 with 8, 8.1 or even 10 becoming more and more likely as time goes by. From my experience I can confirm 7 is fine but connecting any of the 8’s to a server 8r2 is a major shit fight. I would suggest looking into Hyper-v as you can grab the (free) download iso and install that on just about anything that has a 64bit (AMD or intel) chip, intel gigabit-network card ($10) and at least 4g of ram but it’s your life mate and good luck with it.
 
Thanks.
I downloaded Hyper-V 2012R2 but until I figure out how to do configurations and such it will take awhile... does it only work with intel NICs?
 
does it only work with intel NICs?

No but you asked for pro-tips. My home hyper-v runs on an old xp gaming system built around a GA-78LMT-S2P rev4.0 motherboard... hyper-v detects the in-built lan on this board just fine but my you-brute (payed for) ESXi 5.5 from the good people at vmware doesn't detect it.

Unless you are VERY good at machine code installing a server without a lan is a major shitfight and putting a $10 intel card is just a better work around.
 
I was asking because I installed it for trials on an older HP machine and it did not detect the built-in nic.
And PS again, I'm not an IT pro but pretty competent at making them work.
 
RE: message #5
Thank you very much, very informative; all the computers are listed on the server, so I would assume they all are on the domain.
I still have to check the shares closely; I have just 1 shared drive on the server itself, drive D. it is listed both as D and D$ and I will have to look at it.
What I don't get is... why the server turned invisible after I switched the router? the trial router was an older linksys I used at home; the proper router is a Cisco RV325 which is fairly up to date.
As for the Hyper-V... I don't think as the core has much use for me, I don't have the tools to set it up and run it properly.
 
What I don't get is... why the server turned invisible after I switched the router? the trial router was an older linksys I used at home; the proper router is a Cisco RV325 which is fairly up to date.

Sounds like the router is filtering your ports.
 
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