Over the weekend my boss replaced the server which holds all of our student’s user data. Though the operating system version, server name, domain membership, share names, and permissions all stayed identical from the old server to the new server none of our students could access their data when they came to school this morning. After a few hours of troubleshooting I realized that an nslookup of the server wasn’t getting beyond our Extreme Network switches. Five minutes after rebooting our switches everyone was back up and running, and the users were able to access their data. Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, can someone explain to me why this has happened so I know when to expect it in the future?

This problem has been making my life a living hell since we deployed Windows Vista to a handful of workstations several months ago. According to Microsoft, “Network discovery is a network setting that affects whether your computer can see (find) other computers and devices on the network and whether other computers on the network can see your computer.” What this means to a network administrator is that, even with correct firewall rules in place, communication [...]

CCC Pathways is an estimating application for auto repair and and appraisal businesses and is commonly installed as a client/sever package. I work for a technical school and have installed and supported Pathways for several years. This post documents the process of installing CCC Pathways and provides solutions to common problems.