Friday, September 17, 2010

DNS Alias doesn't work when pointed to a 2008 server

Say you replace a  server and just want to use an DNS alias to keep the original name of the service. When you try this on windows 2008 it may not work because of 'Strict Name Checking' that is enabled in the system registry of the Windows 2008 server you are trying to access.

We found that
1.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters


2. 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
Then rebooting the server fixed the issue. 

I know this link looks to be only for Windows 2000 and or 2003 but I found it also effective for Windows 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=281308