inheriting someone else's network. slowly moving away from local server to a remote server. not my decision. from workstations over cat5 to linksys switch to netopia dsl modem. windows 2000 server also hooked up to netopia modem. When the server is down, no one attached to the network can get online. when they sign in to the domain, I understand, but when they sign into the machine, with no domain or workgroup, why can't they get online if they are using dhcp? what don't I understand?

It's a bit confusing what you have written. Are you saying that a singe PC, not in a network running say Windows Xp cannot get online.?

neither machines using xp sp3 nor a mac using 10.5.6. These machines run to a linksys switch that is connected to the modem. the server is connected to the modem. when the server is down, so is everyone's internet access, even if they don't log into the domain hosted by the server.

let me try that again. ok there currently is a windows 2000 server with a domain. the users log into that domain so that they can have networked folders and an administrator can manage the network and perform group backups. slowly they are moving away from this machine to a remote server. eventually they want to get rid of the server, but when it's disconnected, even when users log onto their machines, not into the domain but rather [name of computer (this machine)] they cannot get internet access. the users connect via ethernet to a switch, which in turn connects to a 4 port dsl modem. the server connects directly to the modem. What I seek is for everyone to be able to access the internet without the server. why disconnecting the server from the modem throws a wrench into this mess I don't understand.

DNS. Simple word but complex. You are running Active Directory. For AD to work it requires the MS DNS server. Your workstation, as they should be, point to it for name resolution. When it is down you can't get to yahoo.com. When the server is down you should be able to go to yahoo by typing in 206.190.60.37 which is yahoo's ip. You just don't have name resolution for the internet without going thru the ms dns server due to it being down. drawback is if you change the workstations to the isps dns servers they won't logon/find the domain.

thank you. is there away to set it up so that when they are logged into the domain account it uses the dns provided by the server; and when a user logs into their machine, not the domain I can use the ISP's dns?

All clients should be set to dhcp and getting it from the server now. Once you pull the server setup dhcp on the router which will then give them the correct lan ips, gateway and dns servers.