My company recently employed an MCSE to set up Windows 2000 Server. Unfortunately, he failed to set up the DHCP server, which caused the router to make random dial-outs, sometimes as often as every 30 seconds. Even after the MCSE supposedly fixed the problem, we still had a massive telephone bill for about 19,500 ISDN calls.

While we were trying to figure out what was causing the spontaneous dial-outs, we consulted Microsoft's premium support service. Although we figured out that our MCSE caused our problem, Microsoft also discovered that Win2K Server has a bug that causes the router to make a random call every 4 hours. To help us fix this problem, Microsoft directed us to the articles "ADsOpenObject(), ADsGetObject(), OpenDSObject() Functions May Generate Incorrect DNS Queries" (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q258/5/07.asp) and "ADsOpen-Object("LDAP://RootDSE", ....) Call Generates Incorrect DNS Queries on the Network" (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q259/7/39.asp). Microsoft also sent us three hotfixes and instructed us to apply Service Pack 1 (SP1). In addition, Microsoft sent us a five-user copy of Exchange 2000 Server and a check for 100 UK pounds toward our phone bill. Needless to say, Microsoft's excellent service impressed us.

—George Bell
info@techno-vision.co.uk