I have a computer that was joined to the domain, but somehow, the computer account was removed from Active Directory. The machine still thinks it's joined to the domain, and its main user still has cached credentials.
That is normal that the user keeps logging in using the cached credentials. This is true since the computer is not communication with your AD environment. The next time that the user will connect his computer to the AD domain, the authentication will get
rejected and he will no longer be able to login again - Only local accounts will work at that time.
So, to make things more clear, the removal was done from AD side but the computer is not aware as it is not connected to AD. The next time it communicates with AD, it will notice this change and refuse the logon.
Now, since you removed the account, you can try two things:
- Authoritative restore of the account you removed
- Disjoin and join again the computer to the domain
Of course, the second option is the easier one. However, that requires access to the computer using a local Administrator account. If you have no local access, you may try to use DART to reset the local password and join again the computer to the domain.
This should help for future issues similar like that!
Recommendation: As the maintenance of AD may require removal of obsolete / unused accounts, enterprises may do cleanup tasks by removing old computer accounts. Unfortunately, this will cause impacts on the computers if they were back again.
That is why, I would recommend disabling computer accounts instead of removing them as part of the cleanup process. Once you are sure that the accounts are no more used, you can proceed with the removal.
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posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.
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Computer account no longer in AD, but computer still thinks it's domain member
