Pages




Wednesday, August 24, 2011



Digg this

Update: Virtualize Your Desktop

Microsoft Windows Logo
An interesting thing happened to me about a month after I virtualized my Windows 7 desktop and began running it on Linux: I was somehow dropped from the domain.  After doing a little online research, it turns out that I am not the first person to have this problem (surprise).  But the good news is that there is a way to fix it.

If you missed the original post, read Virtualize your Desktop.

Apparently, after 30 days my computer's domain password is set to update and that's where the problem happens.  When my computer updates it's password on the domain, it breaks the trust relationship with the domain.  I would think that a virtualized version of
Windows could exist inside a host on the domain the same as a physical or paravirtual version of Windows, but this does not seem
to be the case.
So, it would that the solution is to stop my virtual Windows' machine from having its password updated.  And that's exactly what I did.  You see, when your Windows computer updates its password on the domain is determined by the client and not the domain controller.  So, without bothering my friendly IT staff, I can tell my virtual Windows install to never allow it's domain password to expire.  To do that I should just have to update the following registry property to value I have specified.

Property: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters\DisablePasswordChange
Value: 1

Hopefully, you are doing this before you run into a domain trust issue with your virtual Windows install.  Otherwise, like me, you will have to get re-added to the domain.  And after I take care of getting myself re-added to the domain, I'll wait a couple of months to verify that this worked.  I'll let you know either way.

No comments:

Post a Comment