Security News > 2022 > October > Microsoft: Windows domain joins may fail after October updates

Microsoft says Windows domain join processes may fail with "0xaac" errors after applying this month's security updates.

The issue stems from hardening changes introduced when addressing the CVE-2022-38042 elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Active Directory Domain Services that would allow attackers to gain domain administrator privileges.

Because of these additional protections, domain join operations are intentionally prevented from re-using an existing computer account in the target domain.

Domain join operations will be blocked automatically after installing the October 2022 security updates on client computers due to additional security checks before re-using an existing computer account.

Microsoft explained that domain join processes might intentionally fail with "0xaac: NERR AccountReuseBlockedByPolicy" errors saying that "An account with the same name exists in Active Directory. Re-using the account was blocked by security policy."

"Affected scenarios include some domain join or re-imaging operations where a computer account was created or pre-staged by a different identity than the identity used to join or re-join the computer to the domain."

News URL

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-windows-domain-joins-may-fail-after-october-updates/