Are you saying that you can’t join the win 7 system to the domain?
Make sure the dns server is set to the correct server for active directory on the Win7 system. Try a “ping -a domain_controller_ip”, it should tell you the name of the DC. Try a “nslookup domain_controller_ip”, it should also tell you the name of the DC.

Cannot ping server im not sure what is going on , i have setup 3 other workstations running win 7 pro . and now i cant see the server

Can you connect directly to the Internet?

When you are connected to the network, does the machine pick up an IP address? If not, what happens when you assign a static IP address to it? If it works fine with the static, but does not pick up a dynamic address, you will need to determine why it is not getting a dynamic address. Is it that you have run out of available dynamic addresses? A problem with the NIC driver? (Install the latest and greatest one.) BIOS up-to-date?

If you are going to be joining your WIN7 machines to a 2003 domain, I seem to recall that there is a hotfix that needs to be installed to be able to join them to that domain.

If you can’t ping the server, then the OS is probably not a factor (by now).

-Make sure the patch cable is Ok.
-Check the machine’s ip address (ipconfig) and net mask

These are new pc’s , they will not connect to the network or the internet.
they will not pick up an IP , i assigned them static IPs still nothing.
Cables are good
there are still a few printers that are part of the workgroup. it will see them.
but nothing on the domain.
i try to connect to the domain and
“active dir domain controller could not be contacted ”
i

If you can’t ping the server (and no firewall is blocking ping requests), you will not be able to join the domain.

I can only think of bad cables, bad switches, bad NICs (or bad NIC drivers), bad ip configurations.

What troubleshooting have you done so far ?

Have you tried different cables, different switch ports, different NICs ?
Are the server and the clients on the same subnet ? have you reviewed their network configuration carefully ?
Can this machine ping other clients ? can it ping itself ?

Firewall disabled, cables good , nic good , i think whatever is assigning IP’s has a problem . i setup 3 differant win 7 machines a few months ago with no issues

.?????

“i think whatever is assigning IP’s has a problem”

That would be the DHCP server, but you said that assigning a static ip address didn’t help either.

Can you post the ip address and net mask of the server, and the static ip address and netmask you assigned to the client ?

Also, can you post the results of running this on the client ?

ipconfig /all

And, could you please answer this ?

Can this machine ping other clients ? can it ping itself ?

Also, can you paste the results of a ping to the server’s ip address here ?

I guess he figured it out…

had to manually add pc to DNS

I think windows 2003 server should add new pc automatically , correct?

Thanks for sharing your solution.

“had to manually add pc to DNS“.

To be able to ping the server from the client the pc’s DNS entry should not be needed.

Also, from the beginning, pings to and from the server using ip addresses were suggested to verify whether it was a DNS issue. That would have helped us to suggest DNS-related solutions earlier, but we didn’t get any feedback about that suggestion.

Anyway, I’m glad you solved it.

I am also having the same issue. I have 4 windows 7 clients which is not communicating to a 2003 DC.

I have tried changing dns server, disabled windows firewall, tried static and dynamic IPs
disjoined from domain, switch ports have changed..still it is not pining to a DC. Please help to resolve this issue.