Hey guys! I wanted to get everyones input on a little topic of conversation around our shop for the past few weeks. About a month ago, I set up a new machine at an account and although it should have been a 20 min or so job, it has turned into 3 week long nightmare.
The first sign of things going wrong was when I sat down at the first PC and ran IPCONFIG /ALL. First, I noticed the IP address was not in a private range and neither was their default gateway. But my eyebrows really perked when I saw a subnet mask of 255.255.254.0.![EEK!](https://www.copytechnet.com/core/images/smilies/eek.png)
Last week, we get a phone call from the customer in which I installed the machine and he broke hell loose! He said that one of the PC's in the office had not been able to print since I left. Now, I know this is not true because I still have the windows test page on file that I printed from each PC in the office (little habit of mine). So I call the office in question and ask one of the girls to rerun IPCONFIG /ALL for me. Guess what! Not only had the IP changed (last three octets actually), but the default gateway was way different and the subnet mask was now 255.255.251.0. The girls said that no one had changed anything on the PCs or at the office since I had been there last, even though the reason this PC could not print was because the print driver had been deleted. I called the owner back and asked if he had changed out one of his routers or hubs and the answer was no. I explained that the PC was printing again and he was happy.
Two days later... Same thing, but this time the driver was not only deleted, but the PC was off the network. She was still online, just not able to see anything other than her own PC on the network when browsing. INTERESTING!!
Now, as I mentioned before, all the IP's in use were public IP address. My boss and I were talking about this the other morning and we did a tracert on one of the IP's and it came back as a comcast IP, which makes perfect sense because comcast is their ISP. Only problem is that we were ping the IP of the of the PC's in their office. Now that's public!!
So late this afternoon, I get a call from another store owned by the same customer and she could not print. Come to find out someone had created a copy of her print driver and it was set to default, but with no network settings. After deleting the copied driver, she was fine, but I asked her to run IPCONFIG /ALL for me and guess what... public IP for the PC, the gateway, but her subnet mask was 255.255.0.0, which actually fits her IP class/range.
Since you guys have all the background now... and yeah, it was alot! Why in the hell would someone have a subnet mask such as 255.255.254? And why are all the hubs in all their offices set at public IP's? I know this is why the PC's have public IP's, but why would someone do that. I mean, to my untrained eye I would call the person either ignorant or plain stupid. But, I have only been connecting machines for a little over a year now, so there might be something I'm missing. We are trying to convince the customer that he needs to rework the networks in all his stores (7 of them), but... well I'm posting here so![Frown](https://www.copytechnet.com/core/images/smilies/frown.png)
Any help in explaining this would be greatly appreciated.![Cool](https://www.copytechnet.com/core/images/smilies/cool.png)
The first sign of things going wrong was when I sat down at the first PC and ran IPCONFIG /ALL. First, I noticed the IP address was not in a private range and neither was their default gateway. But my eyebrows really perked when I saw a subnet mask of 255.255.254.0.
![EEK!](https://www.copytechnet.com/core/images/smilies/eek.png)
Last week, we get a phone call from the customer in which I installed the machine and he broke hell loose! He said that one of the PC's in the office had not been able to print since I left. Now, I know this is not true because I still have the windows test page on file that I printed from each PC in the office (little habit of mine). So I call the office in question and ask one of the girls to rerun IPCONFIG /ALL for me. Guess what! Not only had the IP changed (last three octets actually), but the default gateway was way different and the subnet mask was now 255.255.251.0. The girls said that no one had changed anything on the PCs or at the office since I had been there last, even though the reason this PC could not print was because the print driver had been deleted. I called the owner back and asked if he had changed out one of his routers or hubs and the answer was no. I explained that the PC was printing again and he was happy.
Two days later... Same thing, but this time the driver was not only deleted, but the PC was off the network. She was still online, just not able to see anything other than her own PC on the network when browsing. INTERESTING!!
Now, as I mentioned before, all the IP's in use were public IP address. My boss and I were talking about this the other morning and we did a tracert on one of the IP's and it came back as a comcast IP, which makes perfect sense because comcast is their ISP. Only problem is that we were ping the IP of the of the PC's in their office. Now that's public!!
So late this afternoon, I get a call from another store owned by the same customer and she could not print. Come to find out someone had created a copy of her print driver and it was set to default, but with no network settings. After deleting the copied driver, she was fine, but I asked her to run IPCONFIG /ALL for me and guess what... public IP for the PC, the gateway, but her subnet mask was 255.255.0.0, which actually fits her IP class/range.
Since you guys have all the background now... and yeah, it was alot! Why in the hell would someone have a subnet mask such as 255.255.254? And why are all the hubs in all their offices set at public IP's? I know this is why the PC's have public IP's, but why would someone do that. I mean, to my untrained eye I would call the person either ignorant or plain stupid. But, I have only been connecting machines for a little over a year now, so there might be something I'm missing. We are trying to convince the customer that he needs to rework the networks in all his stores (7 of them), but... well I'm posting here so
![Frown](https://www.copytechnet.com/core/images/smilies/frown.png)
Any help in explaining this would be greatly appreciated.
![Cool](https://www.copytechnet.com/core/images/smilies/cool.png)
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