Windows 2003 to 2012 Network Configuration
Computing Services Technote #523 v1
Title: Windows Server 2003 to Server 2012 Network Configuration
Applies to: Computer Administrators
Section: Network Services
Owner: Network Manager
Last updated: 20 October 2015
Introduction
This note describes configuration differences from the default installation of Windows 2003 to 2012 that must be implemented on the UofR LAN to reduce excessive domain name server (DNS) load.
Windows Support Status
As of this writing Windows 2003 is not supported by Computing Services. This specific advice is being offered only because of the load on the UofRs DNS servers caused by improperly configured Windows 2003 stations. Windows 2008 and 2012 are currently supported.
The Problem
Windows 2003 to 2012 servers, using DHCP, try to use the dynamic hostname update feature in newer DNS implementations to set the DNS hostname for a specific IP address. The UofRs DNS servers do not accept dynamic updates intentionally so the Windows box gets an error and then continues to retry the updates up to 10 time per hour. In isolation this is not much of a load but if many hosts started doing this it could become a significant load.
Fixing The Problem
To disable this behaviour uncheck the Register this connection's addresses in the DNS tab in the Advanced TCP/IP settings.
Conclusion
The problems of repeated attempts from Windows 2003 to 2012 to update DNS are described and a configuration change to fix this is described.
Revision History
V1 - Remove reference to Windows 2000, add Windows 2003 to 2012.