NT Server 4.0 (SP4) returns error "cannot connect, extended error" to users...

[vi edit]

We've got an NT Server at work that has a couple shared drives, and runs the printing for the office.

Lately, at totally random times, when a user running Win95 wants to connect to a shared drive, or a print to a network printer running off of the NT Server, they get a message back that says "cannot connect extended error". I can change IP addresses on the workstation, change the workstation hostname, log in as a different user ect...nothing seems to work.

Everything else seems to work ok. They can get onto other computers in the workgroup, I can ping the internet router, and other computers can reach the NT Server services, it's just locked up on the one computer.

The only thing that does seem to work is to reboot the server. There has to be a better solution than that.

...And no, going with anything besides MS is not "a better solution"...at least for now

 

[nasty]

Need a little more info..

What is the last thing you have changed in your configuration? (W95 stations and Server)

Are your share-names shorter than 8 characters? W95 cannot connect to sharenames longer than 8 characters.

How is you network setup? DNS / WINS / DHCP ?

Number of BDC's

 

[vi edit]

There really are no changes made, as far as I can tell. They work fine one day, and then when the user comes back in the next day, they no longer can reach the NT Server shared drives.

Network is just a peer-peer workgroup with about 18 Win9X PC's, and one NT 4.0 Server. Everyone is on a static IP. No WINS, only use DNS for internet sharing via a FREESCO router.

Does BDC = backup domain controller? If so, we ain't got one of those either

Thanks!

 

[MetalTaz]

If you look around a will soon find out that Microsoft's service pack 4 is the worst service pack out there, i strongly suggest SP3 or or SP6,

Where i work we had all are workstation installed whit SP4 and for no reason on morning some PC coulnd connect to the network after a couple of day we put back SP3, and guess what it worked!

So if you can try changing your Service pack.

 

[MetalTaz]

Sorry about my spelling, I think faster than I type.

 

[vi edit]

Hmmm...I'll think about updating the service pack. SP5 was also pretty bad wasn't it?


Should I just go straight from SP4 to SP6?

 

[MetalTaz]

We're running Sp6a, They're aren't any major bug's in Sp5 for more info check this out
SP info from Microsoft