I donīt know what I have to do to configure a DNS server on my standalone machine in order to install Active Directory. I always find an error message because the Active Directory installation program canīt locate my machine on the network.

let me guess, you brought up an active directory global catalog server with no problem... but when you tried to dcpromo (upgrade to dc's) other machines on the network, it said som'm about not finding the active directory dc... right? I'M HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM! i know it's because i don't have a dns on my network, but that's because i DON'T UNDERSTAND EXACTLY HOW TO SET ONE UP CORRECTLY YET! if anyone reading this knows... which i'm sure there's plenty of you.... PLEASE HELP US! thank you! :)

Me to...help! I am a little shakey on the understanding of how a dns server works and is setup. I am a cisco engineer and have a thourough understanding of routing but not servers.

I have a Win2K Advanced server running at home with internal DNS, it's a lot easier then you'd expect. In the DNS server you have Forward Lookup Zones and Reverse Lookup Zones. Forward lookup zones resolve hostnames to IP addresses, reverse lookup zones do the opposite. The DNS service does most of the setup automatically, it creates a forward lookup zone for your domain with your server IP address added. The DNS service by default will accept dynamic updates therefor Windows 2000 workstations will automatically register themselves, pre-windows 2000 systems don't really need to as they don't use fully qualified names. In my case, and in probably many cases, you want your network to use your DNS server for internal purposes, but be able to resolve internet addresses as well, all you do for this is right click your DNS server, go to the forwarder's tab, and put in your ISP DNS servers in there, then whenever one of your workstations requests an address that isn't in your domain's forward lookup zone, it will forward the query onto your ISP DNS servers and properly resolve the name. If you decide to set the DNS server up and have any questions, e-mail me as I've fought through the snags on setting this one up.

Thanks for the help Adam. I am going to give it a try. Kirk