This may be a fairly basic question, but here goes: I have setup Windows 2003 as an Domain and DNS server in a Parallels host-only setup. I have configured a static IP for the Windows 2003 VM as recommended by Microsoft. I have chosen to use the Parallels DHCP for IP address allocation. I have also set up a Windows XP Professional VM to connect to my domain and have specified the DNS server IP address as configured above but getting its IP address from the Parallels DHCP server. However I am having trouble connecting to the domain from my XP VM, despite explicitly specifying the DNS server IP address. Running Ipconfig on the Win 2003 server machine shows the domain is visible (and I can log on to the domain via this machine). Running nslookup also shows that the domain is visible and mapped to that IP address. On the XP machine, I can ping the IP address of the domain machine but I cannot ping the server (eg server01.contoso.com - the fictional domain that MS creates for its training). IPconfig also says that the DNS server is there but nslookup cannot find the domain name despite seeing the IP address of the DNS machine. The question is thus: are the problems because the machine needs to have the DHCP and DNS with the same IP address? If so, is it possible to configure Parallels host-only networking using the Windows 2003 VM as a DHCP server? Any suggestions welcome! NICK TURNER
