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Painfully obvious but an excellent answer nonetheless. :)<br />
<br />
Thank you.
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Painfully obvious but an excellent answer nonetheless. :)

Thank you.

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Win XP<br />
Win 2k3 server<br />
-------------------<br />
The company that develops our software uses an external domain that they control to identify our internal servers.<br />
<br />
server1.xyz.com &nbsp; 10.0.1.1<br />
<br />
The problem is that when their internet connection fails (or our does) we can not continue to work because our servers are unable to resolve the IP address. &nbsp;I can't create a forward zone on our internal DNS server only for the names that resolve to our servers because then I'm unable to reach other subdomains like www.xyz.com&nbsp;(which is their external web server). &nbsp;and they have hundred that I don't want to update - ever.<br />
<br />
Short of manually copying a HOSTS file to each of a couple thousand Win XP desktops (whose users do not have local admin rights anyway) is there any decent way to solve this?<br />
<br />
Our &quot;firewall&quot; (Sonicwall Pro 2040) doesn't provide any DNS control at all.
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Win XP
Win 2k3 server
-------------------
The company that develops our software uses an external domain that they control to identify our internal servers.

server1.xyz.com   10.0.1.1

The problem is that when their internet connection fails (or our does) we can not continue to work because our servers are unable to resolve the IP address.  I can't create a forward zone on our internal DNS server only for the names that resolve to our servers because then I'm unable to reach other subdomains like www.xyz.com (which is their external web server).  and they have hundred that I don't want to update - ever.

Short of manually copying a HOSTS file to each of a couple thousand Win XP desktops (whose users do not have local admin rights anyway) is there any decent way to solve this?

Our "firewall" (Sonicwall Pro 2040) doesn't provide any DNS control at all.

Windows server 2003 DNS split domain

Windows Server 2003 was based on Windows XP and was released in four editions: Web, Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. It also had derivative versions for clusters, storage and Microsoft’s Small Business Server. Important upgrades included integrating Internet Information Services (IIS), improvements to Active Directory (AD) and Group Policy (GP), and the migration to Automated System Recovery (ASR).

Windows Server 2003

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical, globally distributed system responsible for associating the name of a computer, service or other resource into an IP address for connecting to the Internet or a private network. Most prominently, it translates domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for the purpose of computer services and devices worldwide.

Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft brand for identity-related capabilities. In the on-premises world, Windows Server AD provides a set of identity capabilities and services, and is hugely popular (88% of Fortune 1000 and 95% of enterprises use AD). This topic includes all things Active Directory including DNS, Group Policy, DFS, troubleshooting, ADFS, and all other topics under the Microsoft AD and identity umbrella.