All,
I've got a Windows XP client which is unable to query DNS for local or internet looks. Even using ping fails to work. However if I run nslookup from the command line it works fine. But nothing else does.
I've also noticed that when I run msinfo32 I get WMI errors. If I try an reinstall WMI using the below, it prompts me for the Windows XP SP3 disk. I've downloaded SP 3 and expanded it, but when I point it to that folder there are still files that it can't find.
rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection WBEM 132 %windir%\inf\wbemoc.inf
I'm in the process of reinstalling SP3 on the machine now to see if that fixes it. The only errors that I see in the Application and System log are about how it can't locate the domain controllers.
TCP connectivity to the machine is working OK as I can remote desktop to the machine without issue (I'm assuming my credentials are cached). Windows Firewall is disabled as is the firewall within Trend Micro. I've tried disabling Trend Micro to see if that helps which it didn't.
If reinstalling SP3 doesn't help any all I can think of is to have the user format the machine and reinstall.
I'm open to all ideas here, crazy or not.
Best Answer
You might want to check to see if the "NetBIOS TCP/IP Helper service" has been disabled for some reason. When that gets turned off, name resolution behaves erratically on XP.