"Domain controller not found"
I have Compaq Proliant ML350 and ML370 servers, and I have another server for Windows 2003 domain controller (DC). I installed VMware Server in the Compaq ML 350. The box has one NIC card and 100 GB space. It connects with my domain controller, and I can access it through DC. I created two virtual machines which will run Windows NT, but NT is not connecting with the DC, and I can't find the NIC card; it says "domain controller not found." Can you help?

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If I understand the question properly, it seems that your physical host machine can connect to your domain controller, but the Windows NT 4.0 virtual machines (VMs) cannot. Here are some standard troubleshooting steps:

1) Verify that your virtual switch and virtual network settings are configured to communicate with the rest of the network. For example, your virtual switch should be connected to one of the host NIC's connections to have access to the domain controller.

2) Verify that the VMs are configured with the appropriate virtual NICs and that they are connected to the correct virtual network.

3) If virtual NICs are not detected within the VM, you will likely need to install the drivers for them. The specific drivers will depend on the virtualization platform, but usually they're available in an ISO file or other package that can be transferred to the VM.

4) Verify connectivity: Make sure that the virtual NICs are able to communicate with the host server and other computers on the network. You can start with simple PING tests, but you also want to make sure that a firewall is not blocking specific ports/data types (such as DNS or LDAP queries).

If I had to guess, I think number three is the source of your problems. I hope this helps. Good luck!

This was first published in July 2007