Question : domain controller cant see domain computer or itself

hello all!!
im on site at a new installation. have installed w2k3 r2 sp2 x64on one machine, exchange 2007 on another, and have joined all computers to the domain.all was working nicely for the first 48 hours, and then, about 1hour ago, i realize that in the network neigborhood of the domain controller,under the domain, i cant see any clients. i can ping everyone by name and ip but i cant see any client. every other client on the network can see every other client,including the exchange server, but they cant see the DC. however, they can ping it, with ip and with name.
the clients have static ip's.
the clients dns points to the ip of the dc
the dc's dns is itself (127.0.0.1)

ive restarted dns nothing.
no errors anywhere!!
any ideas?
Thanks!!

Answer : domain controller cant see domain computer or itself

Hey there,

It's not DNS, so don't worry about anything in that or restarting that service. Network Browsing is based on NetBIOS, it's all legacy stuff and a bit temperamental.

First things first.

On your server ensure that NetBIOS over TCP/IP is enabled in the TCP/IP Settings / Network Settings.

Then ensure that the Computer Browser Service is started.

The server must announce it's presence to the Master Browser on the network to be visible in the Browse List (and therefore in Network Places). To improve reliability of the Browse List it would be a good idea to make sure your Server is the one that hosts it.

That's a simple case of adding a registry value to your server. It's documented here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/cnet/cnfi_brs_vcer.mspx

It's the IsDomainMaster value we're particularly interested in.

If you have more than one IP Subnet a WINS Server is required, all clients and servers must be told to refer to that.

HTH

Chris