BoyMars's questions

I've been playing with VoIP IP PBX solutions for a few months, but I'm trying to find a solution that will allow for the following:

• An IP PBX based in a data centre (where SIP trunks will terminate), idea being that the company has a single number for everything.
• Several(~10) IP phones in several offices (4).
• Each office has a standard SOHO router rendering most SIP-based IP handsets useless because of NAT.
• Each user needs an extension that they can take with them (soft-phones) or log into a phone with ("hotdesking").

IPSec VPN linking the office to the PBX is not an option here.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

In terms of schema updates does 'Exchange 2007 SP3' adprep /forestprep and 'Server 2008' adprep /forestprep do the same thing?

I'd like to add a 2008r2 DC to an existing 2003-level forest (which requires 2008 adprep on the forest) and I've not yet had the need to apply SP3 to Exchange (which brings 2008 compatibility to Exchange).

Domain functional level will stay at 2003, as all my existing DCs are 2003.

A remote site has about 25 of our 50-ish employees. They have their own AD domain presently (2003) but I want to look at getting them onto the same global domain for ease of access/administration. The remote site has a VPN link but line speeds are very poor.

I am already aware of tools like ADMT and have done a few migrations in the past (NT/2003 domains), but this is the first time I have the luxury of designing how this domain is organised. So I'm looking for tips on good AD design; would a remote site be better served as a sub-domain? would this reduce traffic? I am only currently looking at 2003 since only existing machine will be used.

edit-hope someone can give some advice on this?

I have an unusual problem with a Windows Server 2003 (Standard x86) box.

It appears the machine will not accept connections to its shares (locally and from other domain member servers) by using its ip address in a UNC path. The error returned is: "no network provider accepted the given network path"

This is the case with the machine's ip address \\10.0.8.x = FAIL

and even the loopback address \\127.0.0.1 = FAIL

and even \\localhost = FAIL

but using the hostname (fqdn or not) works!!! \\server & \\server.domain.local

The local windows firewall for this server is off, ping/rdp/other services respond fine using the IP address.

The following services are running and have been restarted:

• Computer Browser
• Workstation
• Server

The server itself has been rebooted too. Event 8032 in the system log indicates that:

The browser service has failed to retrieve the backup list too many times on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{29A6A925-AFB3-47E2-BA59-DDA086DEAE7A}. The backup browser is stopping.

The domain controller has not been restarted, no other servers have experienced this problem, yet there are a number of browser (8021) related errors in the logs on this server.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I would like to avoid rejoining this server to the domain if possible.