A couple of days back our Server crashed and we could not resurrect Active Directory. So we reconstructed Active Directory information from scratch. The usernames have been retained as they used to be before crash.
We have Windows-7 client machines that get authenticated by this Active Directory. As a user, I am unable to log in when I connect to the network as this user (remember we reconstructed Active Directory with exact same user names). However, if I disconnect from network and login, I am able to log into my computer and work usually. This happens because, clearly the Active Directory credentials are cached on the user machine.
What I want to be able to know is:
- What is a quickest way to be able to 'rejoin' the Domain?
- Is it possible to clear this user-machine cache and join the Domain fresh?
Best Answer
It happens not because the previous AD credentials are cached but because the new AD objects are not the same as the old objects, even though you created them with the same names. What you need to do is:
Unjoin the computers from the old domain (by putting them in workgroup mode) and join them to the new domain.
Log onto the new domain from the newly joined computer using the username (which is the same user name but a different user account).
This is going to create a new user profile for the user on the respective computer. The old user profile can then be copied to the new user profile.