For the last several months I’ve been having an issue with DNS (Domain Name Services) that I just couldn’t figure out! It seemed like at least once a week a user would call up and say “we can’t print to the Sales printer.” And every time, after some quick troubleshooting, it would be determined that the DNS entry for the printer would be lost! It was getting to the point that as soon as someone would call with a problem with that printer, I would immediately check DNS and re-add it because it would disappear!

Adding to the frustration was that this wasn’t the only printer that this happened to. Another printer in another building on it’s own subnet and DNS Server/Domain Controller was doing the exact same thing and never at the same time!!! I was beginning to think that it was related to the NIC cards on the printers because these were the only two devices on the entire network that would vanish from DNS! But they both began doing this as soon as they were installed.

As I said earlier I was going through this headache for months, close to a year as a matter of fact, and finally one day I sat down and said “I’m going to figure out what is causing this!" I opened up the DNS Admin Console and noticed that the hostname and IP addresses that I was having problems with, which were added manually and not through DHCP, had a date/time stamp on them (the DNS Admin Console for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 displays the date/time stamp for DNS entries) where other hostnames/IP addresses that had been added manually didn’t; more specifically, ones that had been added or modified when we were still using Windows Server 2003 R2. Why did this entry and every new entry  that I tried testing with have a date/time stamp? That’s why the DNS entry was vanishing! It had an expiration date! Now I just have to figure out how to remove that date/time stamp!!!

I searched the Internet looking for anything that could shed some light on this and one article I found mentioned the “Advanced” view in the DNS Admin Console. “Hmm… I don’t remember an advanced setting in the DNS Admin console!” I thought. Then I found it! Right there under the View menu was a setting so simple yet so overlooked (the easy ones are always overlooked, aren’t they?) that I just couldn’t  believe that I had missed something that simple!!! After checking the “Advanced” option in the view menu here’s what I found when looking at an entry:

EUREEKA!!!! There it is!!! I unchecked the “Delete this record when it becomes stale” option and BINGO!!! The entry doesn’t vanish anymore and, more importantly, users won’t be calling saying that they can’t print!!! Well, they may still call but at least it won’t be for this nagging DNS issue!!!

So I guess the morale of the story is when using Microsoft Management Tools always remember to use the Advanced settings.