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Scott Chamberlain
Asked: 2012-02-17 08:25:44 +0800 CST

Domain user invisable on local Remote Desktop Users group

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I am following Microsoft's "Installing Remote Desktop Session Host Step-by-Step Guide".

I am on the step Step 2 sub-section: "To add Morgan Skinner to the Remote Desktop Users group".

I can add mskinner to the local Remote Desktop Users group, however once I click Apply(or I click OK then come back in to the list) the list is empty again. If I try to add him again I get the error

---------------------------
Local Users and Groups
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"Morgan Skinner" is already a member of group "Remote Desktop Users".
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OK   
---------------------------

After restarting RDSH-SRV still has a empty Remote Desktop Users group.

Interestingly if I go to the domain controller, and manage RDSH-SRV remotely from there I do see the listing (SID only, no username)

RDSH-SRV's window
enter image description here

RDSH-SRV's window remotely viewed through CONTOSO-DC
enter image description here

Both machines are clones of a base Win2k8R2 (180 day eval version) VMware Image Snapshot. They are running inside VMWare Workstaion 8 on a lan segment (with each getting a new MAC address). After the clone I turned one in to the domain controller (CONTOSO-DC) and one in to a domain member (RDSH-SRV).

Could the fact that they are based on the same base snapshot image cause this, or am I making some other kind of mistake?

windows active-directory windows-server-2008-r2

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The thing that stands out the most to me is the following

    "Both machines are clones of a base Win2k8R2 (180 day eval version) VMware Image Snapshot. After the clone I turned one into a domain controller"

    Sounds like there's an issue with the RID FSMO:

    Relative ID (RID) Master

    Allocates RIDs to DCs within a Domain. When an object such as a user, group or computer is created in AD it is given a SID. The SID consists of a Domain SID (which is the same for all SIDs created in the domain) and a RID which is unique to the Domain.

    Did you sysprep the DC clone and set it up for OOBE and Generalize? Using snapshots/clones and not sysprepping can cause some serious issues and weird things to happen such as what you're describing. Since you're just doing this for testing I would suggest Sysprepping your reference image and then create new virtuals from that. Let us know how it turns out.

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