Windows 11 - DNS issue

Question

Hello

I am currently testing the compatibility of our organization with Windows 11 and I am facing a strange behavior. The DNS service is not working well with Windows 11.

On Windows 10 there is no issue and all the IP addresses are resolved correctly from our DNS, but on Windows 11, the DNS results are strange:

• If the request belongs to our main domain, nslookup provides the correct internal IP address
• If the request belongs to an internal domain only, nslookup provides the correct internal IP address
• If the request belongs to any other domain, nslookup provides the public IP address instead of the internal IP address

This is only happening from the internal network. If I connect by VPN, using the same DNS servers, then the result is correct in every case.

Has anybody experienced the same issue? Is this a problem of the Windows 11 desktop, the DNS server...?

Thanks in advance

Best regards

Yann

Answer 1

Dear all

I have found a solution that solve my issue but generate a bigger concern.
I have just tried to configure manually the network connection of the laptop, using exactly the same IP address, mask, gateway and dns server that I was getting before from the DHCP server. And it works! Like this the DNS is correctly providing the internal IP address instead of the external one.

If I then configure back the network through DHCP, it fails again.

It looks like if the DHCP server is giving more information than just the IP configuration.

Has anybody experienced this kind of issue?

Thanks in advance

Best regards

Yann

Answer 2

I am experiencing the same issue on Windows 11.

When i am in the office my device gets ip address, subnet and dns servers from DHCP and all works ok.

When i leave the office and connect at home, my device gets the ip address and subnet ok but DNS doesnt update.

If i do an IPCONFIG i can see the DNS servers set as the ones from when i was in the office, even though it is set to get it from DHCP.

The only way to get it to get the DNS from DHCP is to uninstall the NIC driver and reinstall but this occurs every time. I never experienced the same issue on Windows 10.

Answer 3

The accepted answer is no solution for me (on Windows 11 Pro, 21H2 22000.978)
My network adapter is set up to automatically discover the DNS server and my router at home is set up to supply a self-hosted local-network DNS server (192.168.178.21).

When I'm at home, this DNS server is correctly discovered without manually configuring it on every device.
However, if I join any other network (e.g. a public train network or our office network), the local-net DNS server at home is, obviously, not available; yet windows fails to attempt to discover a new one.

Even if I do ipconfig /flushdns /registerdns or ipconfig /release /renew this issue persists.
The only fix is to manually configure a publicly accessible DNS server (e.g. 1.1.1.1) every time I join another network and set it back to auto-discover when I come back home.

Manually configuring this every time is NOT a good solution. Windows should discover a functioning DNS server when set to auto-discover.

Answer 4

Hello @Yann Dublanche

This may have a very simple solution:

A) verify that both Primary and Secondary DNS are set to Domain DNS servers
B) Flush DNS records and re-register the computer:
from CMD as admin:

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns

Run a "ipconfig /displaydns" to ensure that the proper resolvers are configured.

Hope this helps with your query,

--------
--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept as answer--

Answer 5

Regardless, it is an age old very well known issue when the internal domain name is the same as public domain.

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--