Problem XP accessing Leopard Server Shares

Question

Hi there,
I have read through a lot of posts but have not exactly found my problem. So here it goes:
I have made a clean install of Leopard Server on a Xserve G5 and set it up as "Standard".
By default AFP and SMB are turned on, so Windows XP users should be able to read and write.
While setting it up with "Server Assistant", I added users. These, however, had vanished from the earth when I booted the server for the first time.
I then updated to 10.5.1.
By logging in as root via "Server preferences" I added the accounts manually (again).
Now the thing is that everything works fine from a Mac. I can access Public and read/write to it.
Windows Users, however, cannot log into the server. They see my xserve but when they put it their username and password, nothing happens.
The only way I got this to work, is to add all my users locally using "Workgroup Manager". Then my users can log in and everything seems to work.
From my limited understanding this is not really what I should do though.
I have read that this might have something to do with the DNS server.
But I use the xserve as a standalone server that get's all its information from a DHCP router that's connected to the internet. So there's no local DNS server.
I would like to point out that the exact setup (minus the local users) worked great under 10.3.9.
Any ideas?
-chris.

Answer 1

OK, after having talked to some Apple support guy, I totally was about to give up. He pretty much told me to do a re-install in advanced mode. Apparently, they are aware that standard configurations just don't work as advertised.
But I fiddled around a bit more and finally solved the issues I had, so I wanted to share that with the community.
Basically what I did was this:
1. I set up DNS service using "Server Admin" (I am not sure if that was necessary but I did it anyways)
2. I "kerberized" my Open Directory service in "Server Admin". that made it possible to add users with "open directory passwords". it was enough to hit the "kerberize" button, so so went unexpectedly well.
3. I changed all passwords to open directory passwords.
4. I went back to "Server Preferences" to re-enable all services for users. those somehow got unchecked by whatever Server Admin did. probably you can do that in Server Admin/Workgroup manager, too, but I am not sure how and what I did at least worked.
Now everything seems to function properly. SMB as well as AFP access works and everyone has read/write-access to Public.
-chris.