Article ID: 316803
Article Last Modified on 1/31/2007
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2
This article was previously published under Q316803
SYMPTOMS
In a Windows 2000 domain, earlier clients such as Windows NT 4.0 may not successfully join the domain, or users cannot successfully change their domain passwords from these clients. Users who try to change their passwords may receive the following error message:
This behavior typically occurs when there is a lot of activity on the Windows 2000 primary domain controller (PDC) emulator for that domain. If you have the netlogon logging feature turned on, you may receive many "(Discarded as too old.)" messages in the log.
CAUSE
This behavior occurs because the PDC emulator is too busy to answer these requests within the 10-second time limit and the packets are discarded. In some cases, the PDC emulator cannot service the request because it loses the name-to-internet protocol (IP) mapping of the client.
Netlogon maintains a temporary table that maps client names to their IP addresses. This table caches the entries for only 5 seconds from the initial request. If the PDC emulator does not service the request within 5 seconds, it must search for the client name again. Depending on your name resolution configuration this may take several seconds. Therefore this request may be dropped when the search takes longer than 10 seconds.
The long time it takes to resolve names may cause a large backup of requests to drop at the same time. To resolve this behavior, change the cache timeout value to 15 seconds. If you do so, you do not have to use external name resolution when you process these requests.
RESOLUTION
Service Pack Information
To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack
Hotfix Information
A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Only apply it to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next Windows 2000 service pack that contains this hotfix.
To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
NOTE: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The typical support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.
The English version of this fix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.
Date Time Version Size File name
------------------------------------------------------------
16-Mar-2002 02:33 5.0.2195.5080 20,752 Nbtstat.exe
08-May-2002 22:25 5.0.2195.5758 144,144 Netbt.sys
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4.
MORE INFORMATION
For additional information about how to obtain a hotfix for Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
265173 The Datacenter Program and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Product
Keywords: kbbug kbfix kbwin2000presp3fix kbwin2000presp4fix kbqfe kbnetwork kbwin2ksp4fix kbhotfixserver KB316803
