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JasonWinn

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Urgent, Server unplugged, clients not connecting to exchange 500 points

Hello,
I have a similair post like this getting about MX records but this is quite a bit different.
Earlier today the former owner of the building's IT department was in our server room transfering old equipment, and they unplugged a battery backup which was also connected to our server, after that, our server and router were shut down unsafeley.
After we powered up our computers, most things appeared to be ok. At first one of the computers could not connect to exchange, and I thought it would not be that big of an issue. Well after a few hours of working on it it still cannot connect to exchange, and now another computer cannot connect to exchange.

Whenever loading outlook, most of the time it just tkaes forever at the load screen then comes up with "cannot connect to microsoft exchange server" and I can choose to work offline, retry or cancel.

Now it is two computers that cannot connect, without any error messages and they still have full connectivity to the network and internet, just appears to be with exchange.

I am restarted the server, no luck, restarted IIS, no luck.

Please help, I need it desperatley.
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JasonWinn

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Looks like I fixed it, WINS was enabled on the two computers, i disabled that and they are working just fine now.
TBH I dont know what WINS is or why it was actived but turning it off on those two computers seems to have done the trick>

Points to anyone if they want to explain what WINS is.
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ColinRoyds

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WINS
(Windows Internet Naming Service) Name resolution software from Microsoft that runs in Windows NT and 2000 servers. It converts NetBIOS names to IP addresses. Windows machines that are named as a PC in a workgroup rather than in a domain use NetBIOS names, which must be converted to IP addresses if the underlying transport protocol is TCP/IP.

Windows machines identify themselves to the WINS server, so that other Windows machines can query the server to find the IP address. Since the WINS server itself is contacted by IP address, which can be routed across subnets, WINS allows Windows machines on one LAN segment to locate Windows machines on other LAN segments by name.

When a computer is assigned an IP address by DHCP, the WINS database is updated. In a Windows-only network, WINS is queried for name resolution. In a mixed environment, a Unix machine has to query the Microsoft DNS server, which in turn queries the WINS server, because the DHCP in Windows NT does not update the DNS server. The DHCP in Windows 2000 does, however, update the DNS server (Dynamic DNS). The "Internet" in the WINS name refers to the enterprise internet (small "i"), not the public Internet. See DNS.

taken from
http://www.answers.com/topic/wins
Thanks,  JasonWinn glad you got your problem sorted!!