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How-To Technical

How to use Netdom.exe to reset machine

That which you do not know, the doing will quickly teach you. – Po (Kung Fu – 1972)

Here is a situation where you have a virtual machine joined to an active directory domain and it’s reverted to an earlier state which then invalidates its domain security key. Rather than removing this machine and joining it again you can regain domain access by simply logging into the machine as a member of the local administration group and run the following command in an elevated command prompt:

netdom.exe resetpwd /s:<Primary DC Name> /ud:<DomainUsername> /pd:<Username Password>

This will update the machines security key on the virtual machine and the domain. And after a reboot of the machine you are able to log in and function a member of the domain again.

More info on netdom commands here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785478(v=ws.10).aspx

And a big thanks Michael Girard who posted this as part of my ‘Flashback Friday’ post on Facebook where I had asked people to share what they had learned this week.

Please stop by http://www.facebook.com/jermsmitcom when you have a chance.