Windows – DNS resolution doesn’t work on Parallels VM Guest

domain-name-systemwindowswindows-server-2003

I've got a Windows 2003 Guest VM, running, I believe, on Parallels, leased from 1and1.com (so I don't have access to the physical host machine). This machine has recently (not sure when) stopped doing DNS resolution, e.g., a ping to google.come returns "Ping request could not find host google.com.", and other apps running on the machine complain about DNS resolution failing.

Here's what I've checked:

  • The IP addresses to use for DNS seem to be configured correctly.
  • I can ping those DNS servers (from the guest VM) and all other IP addresses that I've tried.
  • An nslookup against those servers works correctly.
  • Oddly enough, when I first checked it, the "DNS Client" service wasn't running, and was set to "Manual" startup. But I set it to "Automatic", rebooted, confirmed that it was running, and still can't resolve.

I haven't spotted anything particularly damning in the event logs. The first error-level stuff that shows up is the W32Time service complaining that DNS lookup has failed. But immediately after that I do get this error:

Event ID 7000: The NetGroup Packet Filter Driver service failed to start due to the following error: This driver has been blocked from loading.

Ipconfig /all looks like this:

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : S15332843
Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter venet0:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Parallels Virtual Network Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-C5-A9-84-9B
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 74.208.74.114
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.41.217
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 8.8.8.8
                                   8.8.4.4
                                   195.20.224.99

Anything else that I should check?

Best Answer

Turns out that it was a problem with the Parallels host software. The admins at 1&1 had to install a hotfix to resolve it. Fixed now. Thanks for all the troubleshooting suggestions.

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