Windows XP machines falling off corporate domain

[Guest]

Alright So here is our issue. In the past we have had a random computer or
two fall off of our domain and sure, we are able to go remove it, then readd
it and all is good. However here lately we've had 4 - 6 a day, all
appearing random, some happening more than once, others coming off that
never have. It appears they started happening after the following two
things happened one night:

- Applied Latest Windows Server updates (two weeks ago?)
- And due to the updates a reboot was required of AD / DNS / etc

We saw nothing about the updates that would have done this. Also,
everything appears random, and the "majority" of our machines are NOT
falling off... Nothing is corrupt on our AD servers ... GPO we have
disables windows firewall just thinking that maybe that GPO wasnt applying
and by some way it was stopping the computer to renew its account with AD.
We are chasing our tails here as we can not find anything to caus the up in
computers off the domain...while we know it has to be something.

Any idea's?

- Josh

 

[Charlie Tame]

You might try asking in one of the server groups but here's my 2c.

My company IT manager was visiting Friday and just by chance happened to
mention that some users never signed off, leaving open sessions. During the
conversation he made some comment about each machine that signs on being
given a 30 day "License" which then cannot be used by another machine for
the rest of the 30 days. When close to the license limit apparently this can
cause failures if unauthorized machines are signed on.

I hasten to add this was a 2 minute informal conversation so no details came
out of it but I mention it just in case it is a licensing issue - maybe an
update altered something to do with licenses or certs that isn't immediately
obvious? That's why I think the pros in the server groups might have seen it
before.

Charlie