How to force a Windows 2K3 domain controller to reregister its DNS records

Contributed by shamanstears August 2, 2006  
Tagged: Windows networking

Several options exist that let you force a Windows 2003 DC to reregister its DNS records.

For example, you can stop and start the netlogon service on a DC to make it reregister all the service DNS records. You can also use the /dsregdns switch with the Nltest command to force a DC to reregister all it’s DNS records, as the following example shows:

C:>nltest /dsregdns
Flags: 0
Connection Status = 0 0x0 NERR_Success
The command completed successfully


This method lets you avoid losing the netlogon service during the stop and restart. You can also force reregistration of another DC’s records by adding the /server:SERVERNAME option.