Cannot join Vista Client to W2k3 Domain

#1 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007

I have a laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate and am having trouble connecting
to my company's W2k3 domain. When I try to change from a workgroup to a domain,
it immediately asks me for a domain user account that is authorized to add
accounts to AD. I provide the account/password and about 20 seconds in I
receive an error stating 'the network path can not be found'. When I try
to use the 'join a domain' wizard, I am told that "a computer account for
the computer name of my laptop has been found, do I want to use it" - I say
yes (this is the case because after it didnt work the first time I manually
added a 'computer' to AD identical to my laptop's computer name). If I remain
logged in locally, I can see all network shares (granted I provide my domain
credentials), access the internet, RDC to servers and print to network printers,
as well as successfully ping both our DCs. I've tried explicitly providing
the IPs of our DNS servers and disabling IPv6 as suggested by others but
with no success. I've searched on the internet and I've seen at least one
post explaining the same exact issue but the suggestions did not work in
my case - so I know it's not just me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance!

- Chase

#2 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007

When I had a similar problem, it turned out to be a firewall problem

http://computerperformance.co.uk/vis...oin_domain.htm

Guy

"ANIT" <iProbablyNeedHelp@noemail.noemail> wrote in message
news:9f6d1a5252938c9295da1b43bca@msnews.microsoft. com...
>I have a laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate and am having trouble
>connecting to my company's W2k3 domain. When I try to change from a
>workgroup to a domain, it immediately asks me for a domain user account
>that is authorized to add accounts to AD. I provide the account/password
>and about 20 seconds in I receive an error stating 'the network path can
>not be found'. When I try to use the 'join a domain' wizard, I am told that
>"a computer account for the computer name of my laptop has been found, do I
>want to use it" - I say yes (this is the case because after it didnt work
>the first time I manually added a 'computer' to AD identical to my laptop's
>computer name). If I remain logged in locally, I can see all network shares
>(granted I provide my domain credentials), access the internet, RDC to
>servers and print to network printers, as well as successfully ping both
>our DCs. I've tried explicitly providing the IPs of our DNS servers and
>disabling IPv6 as suggested by others but with no success. I've searched on
>the internet and I've seen at least one post explaining the same exact
>issue but the suggestions did not work in my case - so I know it's not just
>me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
>
> - Chase
>
>

#3 (**permalink**) 02-28-2007

I'm not sure if this applies to Vista, but I receive the same error in XP if
I already have connections established to the server I'm trying to join such
as a mapped drive, shared printer, or simply sometimes browsing to the
server. To correct this problem I manually removed all connections and
sometimes had to use the 'net use' command to see all connections that were
established.

Joshua

"ANIT" <iProbablyNeedHelp@noemail.noemail> wrote in message
news:9f6d1a5252938c9295da1b43bca@msnews.microsoft. com...
>I have a laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate and am having trouble
>connecting to my company's W2k3 domain. When I try to change from a
>workgroup to a domain, it immediately asks me for a domain user account
>that is authorized to add accounts to AD. I provide the account/password
>and about 20 seconds in I receive an error stating 'the network path can
>not be found'. When I try to use the 'join a domain' wizard, I am told that
>"a computer account for the computer name of my laptop has been found, do I
>want to use it" - I say yes (this is the case because after it didnt work
>the first time I manually added a 'computer' to AD identical to my laptop's
>computer name). If I remain logged in locally, I can see all network shares
>(granted I provide my domain credentials), access the internet, RDC to
>servers and print to network printers, as well as successfully ping both
>our DCs. I've tried explicitly providing the IPs of our DNS servers and
>disabling IPv6 as suggested by others but with no success. I've searched on
>the internet and I've seen at least one post explaining the same exact
>issue but the suggestions did not work in my case - so I know it's not just
>me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
>
> - Chase
>
>

#4 (**permalink**) 03-01-2007

Thanks guys - i'll try your suggestions. I did try turning off the firewall
before posting and that didnt seem to help. I have a printer connected to
one of our DCs but dont believe it was working before the add anyway. Thanks
again

- Chase

> I'm not sure if this applies to Vista, but I receive the same error in
> XP if I already have connections established to the server I'm trying
> to join such as a mapped drive, shared printer, or simply sometimes
> browsing to the server. To correct this problem I manually removed all
> connections and sometimes had to use the 'net use' command to see all
> connections that were established.
>
> Joshua
>
> "ANIT" <iProbablyNeedHelp@noemail.noemail> wrote in message
> news:9f6d1a5252938c9295da1b43bca@msnews.microsoft. com...
>
>> I have a laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate and am having trouble
>> connecting to my company's W2k3 domain. When I try to change from a
>> workgroup to a domain, it immediately asks me for a domain user
>> account that is authorized to add accounts to AD. I provide the
>> account/password and about 20 seconds in I receive an error stating
>> 'the network path can not be found'. When I try to use the 'join a
>> domain' wizard, I am told that "a computer account for the computer
>> name of my laptop has been found, do I want to use it" - I say yes
>> (this is the case because after it didnt work the first time I
>> manually added a 'computer' to AD identical to my laptop's computer
>> name). If I remain logged in locally, I can see all network shares
>> (granted I provide my domain credentials), access the internet, RDC
>> to servers and print to network printers, as well as successfully
>> ping both our DCs. I've tried explicitly providing the IPs of our DNS
>> servers and disabling IPv6 as suggested by others but with no
>> success. I've searched on the internet and I've seen at least one
>> post explaining the same exact issue but the suggestions did not work
>> in my case - so I know it's not just me. Any help would be greatly
>> appreciated. Thank you in advance!
>>
>> - Chase
>>

#5 (**permalink**) 03-01-2007

Hello Chase,

Thank you for using newsgroup!

Thanks Guy Thomas and Joshua Eason's great information sharing here. You
may first try their suggestions. For Guy Thomas's information, it has
provided you with the steps to troubleshoot this issue.

Thanks & Regards,

Ken Zhao

Microsoft Online Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security <http://www.microsoft.com/security>
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--------------------
| Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 03:44:22 +0000 (UTC)
| Message-ID: <9f6d1a5255978c929a1201f3a3a@msnews.microsoft.co m>
| From: ANIT <iProbablyNeedHelp@noemail.noemail>
| Subject: Re: Cannot join Vista Client to W2k3 Domain
| References: <O1TdM53WHHA.2284@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl>
| MIME-Version: 1.0
| Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
| Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed
| X-Newsreader: JetBrains Omea Reader 1028.2
| Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
| NNTP-Posting-Host: ip24-250-11-181.ri.ri.cox.net 24.250.11.181
| Lines: 1
| Path: TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl!TK2MSF TNGP05.phx.gbl
| Xref: TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl microsoft.public.windows.vista.general:51885
| X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
|
| Thanks guys - i'll try your suggestions. I did try turning off the
firewall
| before posting and that didnt seem to help. I have a printer connected to
| one of our DCs but dont believe it was working before the add anyway.
Thanks
| again
|
| - Chase
|
| > I'm not sure if this applies to Vista, but I receive the same error in
| > XP if I already have connections established to the server I'm trying
| > to join such as a mapped drive, shared printer, or simply sometimes
| > browsing to the server. To correct this problem I manually removed all
| > connections and sometimes had to use the 'net use' command to see all
| > connections that were established.
| >
| > Joshua
| >
| > "ANIT" <iProbablyNeedHelp@noemail.noemail> wrote in message
| > news:9f6d1a5252938c9295da1b43bca@msnews.microsoft. com...
| >
| >> I have a laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate and am having trouble
| >> connecting to my company's W2k3 domain. When I try to change from a
| >> workgroup to a domain, it immediately asks me for a domain user
| >> account that is authorized to add accounts to AD. I provide the
| >> account/password and about 20 seconds in I receive an error stating
| >> 'the network path can not be found'. When I try to use the 'join a
| >> domain' wizard, I am told that "a computer account for the computer
| >> name of my laptop has been found, do I want to use it" - I say yes
| >> (this is the case because after it didnt work the first time I
| >> manually added a 'computer' to AD identical to my laptop's computer
| >> name). If I remain logged in locally, I can see all network shares
| >> (granted I provide my domain credentials), access the internet, RDC
| >> to servers and print to network printers, as well as successfully
| >> ping both our DCs. I've tried explicitly providing the IPs of our DNS
| >> servers and disabling IPv6 as suggested by others but with no
| >> success. I've searched on the internet and I've seen at least one
| >> post explaining the same exact issue but the suggestions did not work
| >> in my case - so I know it's not just me. Any help would be greatly
| >> appreciated. Thank you in advance!
| >>
| >> - Chase
| >>

|
|

#6 (**permalink**) 03-02-2007

> When I had a similar problem, it turned out to be a firewall problem
>
> http://computerperformance.co.uk/vis...oin_domain.htm
>
> Guy

>I have a laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate and am having trouble connecting
to my company's W2k3 domain. When I try to change >from a workgroup to a
domain, it immediately asks >me for a domain user account that is authorized
to add accounts to AD. I provide the >account/password and about 20 seconds
in I receive an error stating 'the network path can not be >found'. When
I try to use the 'join a >domain' wizard, I am told that "a computer account
for the computer name of my laptop has been found, do I want to use it" -
I say yes (this is the >case because after it didnt work the first time I
manually added a 'computer' to AD identical to my laptop's computer name).
If I remain logged in locally, I can see all network shares granted I provide
my domain credentials), access the internet, RDC to servers and print to
network printers, as well as successfully ping both our DCs. I've tried explicitly
providing the IPs of >our DNS servers and disabling IPv6 as suggested by
others but with no success. I've searched on the internet and I've seen at
least one post explaining the same exact issue but the >suggestions did not
work in my case - so I know it's not just me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance!

- Chase

Thanks Guy. I tried the suggestions from the article but the problem still
exists. I noticed that the error message the author was describing was not
the same as the one I am seeing - I am getting the 'network path not found'
error, as opposed to his error of not being able to see the DNS server(s).
Unfortunately the one solution I can not test in-house is turning off the
firewall at the server level. At the end of the day, I can still see all
network resources and interact on the domain as if I was actually connected
correctly, it just wont let me join. I'll also point out that I have a box
that has been running Vista since last summer that I've been using to test
application compatibility and there was no problem joining the domain with
that system. Go figure... Thanks for the help - any other suggestions would
be greatly appreciated.

- Chase