Cannot Connect to Domain
I encountered a problem with a Windows XP Professional system no longer being
able to authenticate with the domain controller after I replaced the disk
drive in the system and restored the system from a backup. Whenever the
user tried logging into the domain or I tried logging in as the domain
administrator, the following message appeared:
| Logon Message |
Windows cannot connect to the
domain, either because the domain controller is down or otherwise unavailable,
or because your computer account was not found. Please try again later. If this
message continues to appear, contact your system administrator for assistance.
|
The problem went away on its own, but only for a couple of days, then recurred.
I took the system out of the domain and put it in a workgroup, rebooted,
then put it back in the domain to correct the problem. Apparently there
are a variety of causes for such a problem.
[ More Info ]
[/os/windows/domain]
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Adding a Domain Account to the Power Users Group
To add a domain account to the "Power Users" group on a Windows XP system,
take the following steps:
- Click on "Start".
- Click on "Control Panel".
- Click on "Performance and Maintenance". If you don't see it, then you
are in Windows XP's "classic" view and you can skip to the next step.
- Click on "Administrative Tools".
- Double-click on "Computer Management".
- Click on "Local Users and Groups" in the "Computer Management" window.
- Double-click on "Groups".
- Double-clik on the "Power Users" group in the right pane of the window.
- Click on the "Add" button.
- In the "Enter object names to select" field, put in the domain account
name. E.g. if the domain was "example" and the user name was "Beth", you would
put in "example\beth".
- Click on "Check Names" to verify the name you entered.
- Then click on "OK", if it was accepted. A "name not found" window will
open if it wasn't accepted.
- Click on "OK" to close the "Power Users Properties" window, which should
now show the name you added.
[/os/windows/domain]
permanent link
Adding a Domain Account to the Administrators Group
To add a domain account to the local "Administrators" group on a Windows XP
system, take the following steps:
- Click on "Start".
- Click on "Control Panel".
- Click on "Performance and Maintenance". If you don't see it, then you
are in Windows XP's "classic" view and you can skip to the next step.
- Click on "Administrative Tools".
- Double-click on "Computer Management".
- Click on "Local Users and Groups" in the "Computer Management" window.
- Double-click on "Groups".
- Double-clik on the "Administrators" group in the right pane of the window.
- Click on the "Add" button.
- In the "Enter object names to select" field, put in the domain account
name. E.g. if the domain was "example" and the user name was "Sally", you would
put in "example\sally".
- Click on "Check Names" to verify the name you entered.
- Then click on "OK", if it was accepted. A "name not found" window will
open if it wasn't accepted.
- Click on "OK" to close the "Administrators Properties" window, which should
now show the name you added.
[/os/windows/domain]
permanent link
Clocks Skewed
I found entries in a Windows XP system's application log stating
"the clocks on the client and server machines are skewed" and
entries in the application log on the server referring to Kerberos
problems stating "the ticket used against that
server is not yet valid (in relationshiop to that server time). Contact
your system administrator to make sure the client and server times are
in sync". I found the problem was due to the fact that the Windows Time
service, aka w32tm, was not running on the server, which was the domain
controller for the domain.
[ More Info ]
[/os/windows/domain]
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