After using WDS machines won't apply computer group policy

[marsdenprimary]

Hi,

I've successfully managed to image some of our machines but they're getting stuck as they are not applying the Computer Config settings. Checked in gpupdate and they're getting the user settings but not the computer ones from AD. Why?

Checked DNS and the forward addresses are there but nothing in reverse lookup. Could this be it?

What can i do? Do i need to re-join them to the domain?

[jamesreedersmith]

Have they been sysprepped correctly?

[marsdenprimary]

Have they been sysprepped correctly?

Now then. I don't know what that means. :/ I did do the sysprep thing on the pc getting imaged... did i need to sysprep all the others too that were having the image applied??

[j17sparky]

Network not coming up in time? Search this forum for mediasense
It's a reg key

[marsdenprimary]

Getting this from gpupdate /r:

The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not resolve the computer na
me. This could be caused by one of more of the following:
a) Name Resolution failure on the current domain controller.
b) Active Directory Replication Latency (an account created on another domain co
ntroller has not replicated to the current domain controller).

[m25man]

Check your DNS/DHCP and clean it up.
Depending how you have it setup machines can register themselves with DHCP/DNS with random-minint names.
Your reverse DNS becomes polluted with ambiguous IP/NetBios names then GPs all go pear shaped until the DNS gets scavenged.
Check this 1st clean up the DNS reboot the PC see what happens.

[marsdenprimary]

Check your DNS/DHCP and clean it up.
Depending how you have it setup machines can register themselves with DHCP/DNS with random-minint names.
Your reverse DNS becomes polluted with ambiguous IP/NetBios names then GPs all go pear shaped until the DNS gets scavenged.
Check this 1st clean up the DNS reboot the PC see what happens.

Giving it a go now...

[marsdenprimary]

...didn't seem to work. Still getting the same message. How frustrating! So close but no cigar!! Any other ideas?

[marsdenprimary]

These are Windows 7 machines by the way with a 2008 server

[Ergo]

Daft question maybe, but is the client machine being given the IP address' of your internal DNS servers for name resolution? Have you tested that your AD domain name, and DC server names resolve correctly using these DNS servers?

nslookup domainname.tld

nslookup DCname.domainname.tld

Should both resolve correctly, almost instantly and with no errors

Dave

[marsdenprimary]

Daft question maybe, but is the client machine being given the IP address' of your internal DNS servers for name resolution? Have you tested that your AD domain name, and DC server names resolve correctly using these DNS servers?

nslookup domainname.tld

nslookup DCname.domainname.tld

Should both resolve correctly, almost instantly and with no errors

Dave

Yep resolving no problem... I have a sneaking suspicion it is something to do with the way the PC has joined to the domain... Just checking it now. Removed / rejoined to see if that sorts it.

[marsdenprimary]

Okay. Removed and rejoined- STILL NO JOY!? This makes me sad. I thought it would be much less time consuming and simpler than this to deploy an image... Do you recommend changing the computer name?

[Ergo]

That would be a good investigative approach. Before you do, is there anything in the event log relating to authentication errors on the domain before the error about accessing the DC for GP refresh?

Dave

[marsdenprimary]

That would be a good investigative approach. Before you do, is there anything in the event log relating to authentication errors on the domain before the error about accessing the DC for GP refresh?

Dave

nothing I can see

What do you suggest now? Total rebuild??

[Ergo]

I would; remove the machine from the domain, reboot, rename it, reboot, add to the domain, reboot, test for problem.

Yes that is tedious but the reboots will make sure nothing strange is going on.

If after the above it works, the problem probably relates to a computer account already in the domain of the original name, or part of the process of renaming and adding to the domain you have configured in WDS.

If after the above it does not work you probably have a slightly more complicated problem with your image which is preventing networking or domain operations from working correctly. I would go back to your image and see if that works.

Hope that helps.

Dave