Windows 10 Machine Cannot Connect to Domain; Others Can

[Don Smith]

I'm an administrator of my EAST classroom in high school. We have a server running Windows Server 2008 that we use to connect all of our other computers, most of which are running Windows 7. They've all connected just fine with only a hiccup here or there until I tried upgrading one of them to Windows 10.
I did this mainly as a test run to make sure that all of our software would work on the new OS, and I've found no problems there. Now all I have left to do is add the upgraded PC to our domain. However, whenever I try to do this, I get an error message:

Computer Name/ Domain Changes

An Active Directory Domain Controller (AD DC) for the domain "east.local" could not be contacted.

Ensure that the domain name is typed correctly.

If the name is correct, click Details for troubleshooting information.

As you can infer from the error prompt, the name of our domain is "east.local" (without quotes, of course). The other machines show that this is the domain that they are connected to, and I disconnected and then reconnected a few just to make sure there weren't problems with general connectivity. I found none.
I would like to find a solution to this, as I would like to upgrade to Windows 10 on all of the other desktops as well. If anyone has any potential fixes or suggestions, I'd be appreciative to hear them. I'll post more information, if needed. Thanks in advance to any constructive posts.

 

[gbb0330]

I'm an administrator of my EAST classroom in high school. We have a server running Windows Server 2008 that we use to connect all of our other computers, most of which are running Windows 7. They've all connected just fine with only a hiccup here or there until I tried upgrading one of them to Windows 10.
I did this mainly as a test run to make sure that all of our software would work on the new OS, and I've found no problems there. Now all I have left to do is add the upgraded PC to our domain. However, whenever I try to do this, I get an error message:

Computer Name/ Domain Changes

An Active Directory Domain Controller (AD DC) for the domain "east.local" could not be contacted.

Ensure that the domain name is typed correctly.

If the name is correct, click Details for troubleshooting information.

As you can infer from the error prompt, the name of our domain is "east.local" (without quotes, of course). The other machines show that this is the domain that they are connected to, and I disconnected and then reconnected a few just to make sure there weren't problems with general connectivity. I found none.
I would like to find a solution to this, as I would like to upgrade to Windows 10 on all of the other desktops as well. If anyone has any potential fixes or suggestions, I'd be appreciative to hear them. I'll post more information, if needed. Thanks in advance to any constructive posts.

make sure you can ping the domain controller by host name.

make sure the primary DNS of the windows 10 computer points to the domain controller's IP address.

 

[jeff-j]

Just throwing it out there, what level is your domain forest. I am wondering if the level is Windows Server 2000 or 2003 if that could be the issue. Maybe see if you raise the level if that works. But make sure the rest of your domain controllers and move to a higher level.

 

[AgPaul]

I agree, with Jeff-j. function level was my first thought

 

[Don Smith]

Just throwing it out there, what level is your domain forest. I am wondering if the level is Windows Server 2000 or 2003 if that could be the issue. Maybe see if you raise the level if that works. But make sure the rest of your domain controllers and move to a higher level.

The domain forest is set to Windows Server 2008 RE (this is the highest functional level).

 

[gbb0330]

Just throwing it out there, what level is your domain forest. I am wondering if the level is Windows Server 2000 or 2003 if that could be the issue. Maybe see if you raise the level if that works. But make sure the rest of your domain controllers and move to a higher level.

The domain forest is set to Windows Server 2008 RE (this is the highest functional level).

any errors in the event logs?

 

[jtobako]

There's an xml file that controls which OSs the server recognises - Microsoft isn't updating it for 2008 servers.

Go to
C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WebApp\ClientDeployment\packageFiles\supportedOS.xml
-->

and add
<OS id=”9" Name="Windows 10, AMD64" Major=”10″ Minor=”0" Build=”10240″ SPMajor="" SPMinor="" ExcludedSuite="512″ RequiredSuite="" RequiredProductType="1" Architecture="9"/>
<OS id="10" Name=”Windows 10, x86" Major="10" Minor="0" Build="10240" SPMajor="" SPMinor="" ExcludedSuite="512" RequiredSuite="" RequiredProductType="1" Architecture="0"/>


It's how to get RWW to work for Win 10 to Server 2008.

 

[Don Smith]

There's an xml file that controls which OSs the server recognises - Microsoft isn't updating it for 2008 servers.

Go to
C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WebApp\ClientDeployment\packageFiles\supportedOS.xml
-->

and add
<OS id=”9" Name="Windows 10, AMD64" Major=”10″ Minor=”0" Build=”10240″ SPMajor="" SPMinor="" ExcludedSuite="512″ RequiredSuite="" RequiredProductType="1" Architecture="9"/>
<OS id="10" Name=”Windows 10, x86" Major="10" Minor="0" Build="10240" SPMajor="" SPMinor="" ExcludedSuite="512" RequiredSuite="" RequiredProductType="1" Architecture="0"/>


It's how to get RWW to work for Win 10 to Server 2008.

Thanks for the reply. This sounded like the exact solution I needed. However, when I navigated to the "Program Files" folder, I found that it did not contain a folder named "Windows Small Business Server". The folders it does contain are "Common Files", "Internet Explorer", "MSBuild", "Reference Assemblies", "Uninstall Information", "Windows Mail", and "Windows NT". I double checked to see if showing hidden files was enabled, and it was. Do you have any idea why this might be?

<UPDATE>
I found out that these steps are for the OS "Windows Small Business Server", which I am not currently running. Our server is running Windows Server 2008. Does anyone know if it's possible to do a similar fix on WS '08 instead? Maybe it would work if I could find the location of the .xml file (if it has one).

 

[tman1]

Windows 10 home or pro?

 

[Don Smith]

Windows 10 home or pro?

Pro

 

[NerdIT]

Just starting from the ground here..

Have you changed the name of, and added the Windows 10 machine to the domain, from the Windows 10 system itself?

Do this first if not,

Or have you just tried adding it straight from the server?

 

[NerdIT]

After a reboot, and from that machine (10 client) click sign in as other and type

domainname\Administrator (\account used when adding)
password

Where domainname is in your case east.local or maybe just local\Administrator (\Administrator or whichever account you used when you initially got prompted on the 10 client when adding it.
The machine should pop up as an object in "computers" on your server.

This is considering IP/mask/gateway and DNS is configured correctly (double check IP addresses, etc)

 

[ifdinc]

I ran into this issue this week. While it may not be the exact same situation, I wanted to post about it.

For years, I've only entered the domain name. That has worked for dozens of machines on the network. Doing so in Windows 10 gave an error that the domain could not be located. By adding .local to the end of the domain, that solved my issue.

 

[06yfz450ridr]

I wanted to add as well, bit different as the machine was able to be prompted to join but would then fail with the same error.

check the interface mode, had one that was in public vs private, cleared the dns and manually pointed the dns to the server and it joined even though that didn't work before changing to private.