I'm trying to connect a Windos7 machine to a Windows Server 2003 domain. I have tried this on 3 differant computers and I get the same error onall three of them.Aftergiving a user name,password and domain name on the "Join a Domain or Workgroup" dialog, I recieve an error: "The parameter is incorrect." message and that is as for as the connection will go. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, John

Have you tried to write the username in the form user@your.domain.com instead of DOMAIN\user? For this to work correctly your client has to be configured with only Domain DNS servers in its tcpip configuration, and never Internet DNS Servers (that in a Domain topology should be forwarded by Domain DNS servers and not asked by clients). Jose Antonio Quilez

I have the same problem. I have a Windows2003 server running AD and that server is the DNS. All nslookups are good but I get the same "parameter incorrect" error. I have tried the user\domain but not the user@domain Had similar problems some time back trying to add Vista computers to the domain...but found that fix to be that the AD server had tobe the DNS server and could have no other DNS servers assigned by DHCP. I'll try the user@domain and report back.... Shawn...

Add the domain to the username is not need when connecting a client to the domain (hence, the domain is already known as you already told it which domain you want to join). So instead of MyDomain\Joe you can simply use Joe as the username.Second, from a CMD prompt, can you ping the FQDN of the domain (no hostname)? Can you ping the NETBIOS name of the domain?You can try joining the domain by specifying the NETBIOS name of the domain instead of the FQDN. For example, my domain at home is lab.theshonkproject.com where the NETBIOS name I choose is LAB. I can connect devices to that domain by simply typing LAB into the domain field.On another note: Are you precreating the computer accounts in the domain?Joe

Thanks all for the replys, I have tried all of your suggestions, with no luck.I can ping the ip address of the domain server that has AD. This server is also my DNS server for the domain and internet. I'm not sure what to try next. Any more help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, John

I too am having difficulty adding to the domain. In our network space the DNS server is also the Active Directory server on Windows 2003. I go to join the domain and afterI type in the network admin's username and password it comes back with the following error message: "The following error occured attempting to join the domain domain.local:" (a blank line follows the colon). "More information is available." (yet there is no link to more information). Mytest machine has a clean Windows 7 install (not upgrade). All my test machine's hardwareworks correctly. I'm submitting this message from the test machine, so the network cardis working. Other steps I've taken: I added the PC to AD and then attempted to join the domain, and that made no difference. I've added all our network security programs (antivirus, etc) thinkingAD may not let me join unless I had up-to-date antivirus. That made no difference either. I have rebooted several times and continued my attempt to add to the domain all to no avail. I can ping the AD/DNS server. It appears that people who upgraded a computer that was already a member of the domain are not having problems. While it does not solve my particular problem, others have had success with solving your "parameter is incorrect" issue by applying a hotfix located here: http://windows7news.com/2009/01/21/windows-7-hotfix-for-long-domain-name-incompatibility/ Install this on your Windows 7 machine, reboot, and it may just solve your problem. It didn't mine, but my error is something different from yours I think. Try it and let us know if it worked or not. Thanks.

Did you try precreating the accounts?Is your admin password blank?Can you ping the domain.com portion of your domain and it resolves to a DC?Can you ping the NETBIOS name of the domain and it resolves to a DC?If you look at your DNS server, does it have the service records for your domain?Does your AD server point to internal DNS server?Joe

Joe Shonk said:Did you try precreating the accounts?Is your admin password blank?Can you ping the domain.com portion of your domain and it resolves to a DC?Can you ping the NETBIOS name of the domain and it resolves to a DC?If you look at your DNS server, does it have the service records for your domain?Does your AD server point to internal DNS server?Joe Yes, tried pre-creating the accountNo, the admin password is not blankYes, I can ping the domain and yes, it resolvesYes, I can ping the NETBIOS name and it resolves successfullyYes, DNS has the service recordsYes the AD servers point to an internal DNS.To add to the mystery, I performed an "upgrade install" of Windows 7 on a laptop that had already been added to the domain under Vista. The laptop continued to flawlessly log on to the domain. Yet the exact same model laptop that had the clean install of Windows 7 still cannot join the domain, even when I give it the IP address of the domain controller. Anyone else having this problem? Anyone else have a suggestion?

Your netsetup.log will be helpful here for troubleshooting.1. Open %systemroot%\debug2. Rename netsetup.log to .bak3. Reproduce your error.4. Post the new Netsetup.log contents here.Thanks,Ned Pyle [MSFT] - MS Enterprise Platforms Support - Beta Team

I am also having similar problems. At first I received an error that the trust relationship has failed. Now i cannot even join the network. NSLOOKUP works C:\Users\Jeffrey Stephen Park>nslookup Default Server: wilson.magcorp.local Address: 192.168.49.16 Ping Works I changed the NTLM in group policy Here is the logfile you requested from the casual adventurer. Win 2000 Domain 07/15/2009 18:23:27:817 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 07/15/2009 18:23:27:817 NetpValidateName: checking to see if 'MAGCORP' is valid as type 3 name 07/15/2009 18:23:27:941 NetpCheckDomainNameIsValid [ Exists ] for 'MAGCORP' returned 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:27:941 NetpValidateName: name 'MAGCORP' is valid for type 3 07/15/2009 18:23:37:395 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 07/15/2009 18:23:37:395 NetpDoDomainJoin 07/15/2009 18:23:37:395 NetpMachineValidToJoin: 'FUNHOUSE' 07/15/2009 18:23:37:395 OS Version: 6.1 07/15/2009 18:23:37:395 Build number: 7100 (7100.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700) 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 SKU: Windows 7 Ultimate 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpDomainJoinLicensingCheck: ulLicenseValue=1, Status: 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpGetLsaPrimaryDomain: status: 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpMachineValidToJoin: status: 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpJoinDomain 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 Machine: FUNHOUSE 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 Domain: MAGCORP 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 MachineAccountOU: (NULL) 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 Account: MAGCORP\administrator 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 Options: 0x23 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpLoadParameters: loading registry parameters... 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpLoadParameters: DNSNameResolutionRequired not found, defaulting to '1' 0x2 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpLoadParameters: DomainCompatibilityMode not found, defaulting to '0' 0x2 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpLoadParameters: status: 0x2 07/15/2009 18:23:37:426 NetpValidateName: checking to see if 'MAGCORP' is valid as type 3 name 07/15/2009 18:23:37:535 NetpCheckDomainNameIsValid [ Exists ] for 'MAGCORP' returned 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:37:535 NetpValidateName: name 'MAGCORP' is valid for type 3 07/15/2009 18:23:37:535 NetpDsGetDcName: trying to find DC in domain 'MAGCORP', flags: 0x40001010 07/15/2009 18:23:52:558 NetpDsGetDcName: failed to find a DC having account 'FUNHOUSE$': 0x525, last error is 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:52:558 NetpLoadParameters: loading registry parameters... 07/15/2009 18:23:52:558 NetpLoadParameters: DNSNameResolutionRequired not found, defaulting to '1' 0x2 07/15/2009 18:23:52:558 NetpLoadParameters: DomainCompatibilityMode not found, defaulting to '0' 0x2 07/15/2009 18:23:52:558 NetpLoadParameters: status: 0x2 07/15/2009 18:23:52:589 NetpDsGetDcName: status of verifying DNS A record name resolution for 'wilson.magcorp.local': 0x232b 07/15/2009 18:23:52:589 NetpDsGetDcName: failed to find a DC in the specified domain: 0xa8b, last error is 0x0 07/15/2009 18:23:52:589 NetpJoinDomainOnDs: NetpDsGetDcName returned: 0xa8b 07/15/2009 18:23:52:589 NetpJoinDomainOnDs: Function exits with status of: 0xa8b 07/15/2009 18:23:52:589 NetpDoDomainJoin: status: 0xa8b thanks

More information: DnS is timing out. > domain=magcorp.local Server: wilson.magcorp.local Address: 192.168.49.16 DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. *** Request to wilson.magcorp.local timed-out