Hello All!
It's about a 20 Terminal Servers 2003 network clustered through Microsoft NLB.
DC, FS, SAN are all redundant and the network is a stable one, having been live for years.
Most users reach the terminal servers by means of Neoware thin clients. There are about 1000 accounts, average online user number is 200.
The issue is that sometimes at log-in time (read below) all terminal servers seem to agree to default to their computer name instead of the domain name (there is only one domain name, no trusts). This confuses thin client users who are used to click the 'Single button sign-in' on the initial login screen and enter their username and password to get into the system. Now they also have to pick the domain name which is indeed annoying for somebody with little technical background. Needless to say, most of them believe they forgot their passwords and call us to get them changed.
Initial research pointed us to the DefaultDomainName key in the registry. We have created an Administrative Template file and loaded it in the GPO corresponding to the Terminal Servers OU. This seemed to have fixed the issue for a while.
Afterwards, when the problem re-emerged we have taken the same setting and added it to the Default Domain Policy GPO. Again, things seem to have improved for a while.
The last attempt was adding a vbs startup script to the terminal servers, which again seemed to improve things for a short while (I say 'seems' because the issue is intermittent, it sometimes works well for weeks and then suddenly goes crazy, without anyone of us making changes to their AD).
We are looking for a permanent solution for this problem. This behavior is very strange to us, especially because everybody else seems to point out that this registry key is the solution.
Best regards,
workshift
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