DNS Zone Transfer Between Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 Fails (203009)

SYMPTOMS

When you try to perform DNS zone transfers between Windows 2000 DNS servers and a previous version of Windows NT Server with DNS service installed, you may encounter certain system errors. Restarting the server has no effect, and DNS on the earlier version platform no longer functions.

The following events may be seen:

Event ID 1505 - DNS Server unexpected end of line, in database file FileName, line #

Event ID 1503 - DNS could not parse database file FileName, line #

Event ID 1501 - DNS could not parse database file FileName for zone ZoneName

After you restart, you may see the previous events, in addition to the following event:

Event ID 7023 - the Microsoft DNS Server service terminated with the following error: the data is invalid

These records will continue to appear until you uninstall DNS, delete the zone files located in %SystemRoot%\System32\DNS, and delete the .dns files in the DNS and backup directory.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, either upgrade the current Windows NT 4 DNS servers to Windows 2000, or upgrade these servers to Service Pack 4 (SP4). Note that Service Pack 4 removes the error messages from the event log and the DNS Server service is able to load, zone transfer, and resolve these records, but the records have to be created and updated manually. They cannot be created or edited by using DNS Manager (Dnsadmin.exe).

MORE INFORMATION

The zone transfer failure occurs because there are new records that exist in Windows 2000 DNS but, because they do not exist in previous NT DNS, the zone transfer fails. Some of these new records include:

SRV Records - Service Location: Used to locate Windows 2000 services such as domain controllers, global catalog, and so on.
AAAA Records - Host address record for IPv6 hosts.
ATMA Records - ATM Host: Used to locate computers hosting ATM on the wire.