It seemed like a good idea at the time, configure the DNS Suffix Search List centrally so everyone gets the same thing.
The wheels fell off when I went to configure the 15th domain suffix. The DNS Suffix Search List Group Policy accepted the value, but the desktop client wasn’t reading it.
The reason I needed to add another prefix, was that an off-site internal website, http://Noddyhome, was not resolving. It was working if the customer typed in the fully qualified domain name, http://Noddyhome.othergroup.internal.beatfeet.com
After much head scratching, it looks as if there is a 200 character limit to that policy. “othergroup.internal.beatfeet.com“ just wouldn’t fit.
The fix? We used the GlobalNames Zone feature of Windows 2008.
References:
Setting DNS Suffix Search List via GPO (Ryan Adams Blog)