Group Policy for DNS Server Addresses

Question

This question deals strictly with the methodology of using Active Directory to publish DNS settings and controlling the DNS server address order to domain attached clients. This is not asking about if this is the right function, role, or best use of group policy; but rather, how to make it work.

I would like to be able to publish in group policy DNS addresses and possibly control the order in which the client consumes the addresses. I have tried following the information from this site without success.

I set the following setting within group policy, but the client never shows the settings within the TCP/IP properties.

Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Network/DNS Client/DNS Servers

I did list them as a single space separated list. For example, the following:

192.168.0.1 192.168.10.3 192.168.34.2 192.168.2.67 192.168.56.99 192.168.99.23

This would be for Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 clients. I am not sure what I am doing wrong or how to get this to work. Am I missing a setting? Do I need to set something differently?

Solution

The setting you are trying to use is for XP Pro computers only

Comments

[murisonc]

Verify that the computer is in an OU that the group policy is linked to. Reboot the client to force a complete GPO update. Also, what is the domain functional level?

[John]

Thanks for the items to check. Those all check out fine and have performed those. The domain functional level is at server 2008.

[TomTom]

I think the general consensus is that this was abandoned because it does not work. If your DNS changes you cna not pull a new GP from servers at an unknown location. As such, DNS has to be set during network conf - or be hardcoded/fixed, like the known addresses in ipv6 that are part of the definition.