We've recently acquired a Laptop with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. After deploying all standard applications to the laptop, we noticed that it was no longer getting an address from the domain DHCP server and receiving "unidentified Network" message when looking at the network card. This is a Windows 2003 Domain with DHCP (2 of them) installed on Windows 2003 SP2 (all patched) DC's. We tried the following as per many other similar post: rebuild the IP stack update the NIC driver reinstall the NIC disable IPv6 update all patches on all DC's Remove computer from domain Remove every application one by one disable the firewall remove any policies and modify existing GPO modify registry as per some other posts restore to previous states of the laptop modify routes etc, etc, etc... After more than 8 hours of troubleshooting, we gave up and decided to do a factory restore. NOTE that the laptop did get DHCP from the network prior ot joining it to the domain... we were able to download all updates, applications and join it to the corporate domain. Now again today, we are not able to get DHCP after joining the laptop to the domain. Here are is exactly what we did today: Restore Laptop to factory default - Windows 7 64Bit Login as default user with administrator priv (as per setup) after reboot Get DHCP address after reboot?? YES!!! 10.100.2.2 with Subnet and DNS Run Windows Update Reboot Activate hidden administrator account Assign Password Reboot Login as local Administrator user Join Network Domain with domain administrator account. Add Adminstrator user to local admin group. Success! Reboot Login as Domain Administrator account Verify DHCP - yes! 10.100.2.2. Verify Internet access and domain access. Success! Try ipconfig /release.. success! Try ipconfig /renew... success. IP 10.100.2.2 force GP update gpupdate /force success! Reboot Login as Domain Administrator account Verify DHCP - yes! 10.100.2.2. Try ipconfig /release.. success! Try ipconfig /renew... success. IP 10.100.2.2 Reboot Login as local administrator account (NOTE... this is where the problem starts) FAILED to get DHCP!!! "unidentified network" Try to run windows newtork diagnostic - says that "The diagnostics Policy Service is not running"... Try to start service manually but can't... get access denied error Try to login as Domain\administrator. Success! NO DHCP from DHCP server Try ipconfig /renew get "access denied" Please remember that prior to joining the domain (and even after a reboot), DHCP was working just fine! Anyone have any ideas??? I'm about ready to give up and load XP Pro on the system. I do appricate any help at all. Thank you, Shayne

From your description it seems that something is messing around with the Local Service account which is used by both the DHCP Service and the Diagnostic Policy Service, thus keeping them from running properly. It could be caused by a Group Policy, but more likely it's caused by you activating the Local Administrator account. Is there some particular reason you need to do this? Joining a domain doesn't require it, nor should you have to add any Domain Admin accounts to the Local Administrator's group; just joining the domain should automatically add the Domain Admins group to Local Admins.

No... the only reason for actiavting the local administrator account was to maintain consistency across the network... all other system have a local Administrator. I'll restore again and this time won't enable the administrator account. Thanks!

Well... I restored the laptop to factory default, DIDN'T activate the local administrator account, added system to domain and now i can't get an IP address. These are the exact steps I did: Restore laptop to DELL factory default Reboot Finished Windows 7 installation and created user "admin" Run windows Update Reboot Login as Admin Browse internet to verify. Checked DHCP. Good 10.10.2.2 Join to Domain with AD administrator account - success! Reboot Login as Domain Adminsitrator - success Verify DHCP. Yes. Success Logout Login as local Admin NO DHCP - network unidentified Logout Login as Domain admin NO DHCP - network unidentified. Anyone else have any ideas? Thanks Shayne

Okay, what does the System Event Log say about any DHCP errors? Is the DHCP Client Service running? If not, try to start it and if it fails check the log and see what the error is, then post it back here.

Hi, DHCP client services is running... and i've restarted it without issue. Ok, I've found the following in the events... under DHCP Clients Warning: Your computer was not able to renew its address from the newtork (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 0xF04DA27E4C7B. The following error occurred: 0x5. Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network (DHCP) server. Event ID: 1003 ALSO... (but this is 30 minutes prior to the above one - i think this is the wireless card) Error: Your computer was not assigned an address from the network (by the DHCP Server) for the network card with network address 0x5CAC4CD28FFA. The following error occurred: 0x79. Your coputer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the Network Address (DHCP) server. Event ID: 1001 Under system, i've also found the following warning but nothing else. NtpClient was unable to set a domain peer to use as a time source because of discovery error. NtpClietn will try again in 3473457 minutes and double the reattempt interval thereafter. The error was: The entry is not found.

DHCP event 1003 usually points to a network connectivity problem. The common answer to this would be to check your cables, network card and network drivers. However... a bit of Googling shows me that it can also be caused by having multiple DHCP servers on a network, and in your original post you said "This is a Windows 2003 Domain with DHCP (2 of them)...". If you meant you have two DHCP servers then this could be causing your problem - you should only have one active DHCP server per subnet.

Hi Bob, We have two DHCP servers with split scope configuration as per this article and others published by Microsoft... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757346(WS.10).aspx We have NO issues with any other Windows XP, Windows 2003 or VISTA system AND this Windows 7 system DID get DHCP before joining the domain. I've shutdown the second dhcp server to see if it would make a difference and it doesn't not. I still can't get DHCP from the first server. I've also plugged in the laptop into another TEST network which is disconnected from our local network. I have a windows 2003 server with a non Microsoft DHCP server; Turbo DHCP... i cannot get DHCP from this server either. I've also tried a second "secure" network which is also disconnected from the primary network running a Windows 2003 DC with Microsoft DHCP. I cannot get DHCP from this network either. HOWEVER... i did noticed that the DHCP server is assigning a DHCP address... i see it in the address lease pool with the laptop name next to it. When I do an ipconfig /renew, i now get the following message: An error occured while renewing interface Local Area Connection: Element not found. Also, when I do an ipconfig /all, i can see that the DHCP server is the correct server. So the DHCP server is giving out an IP, the laptop is simply not doing anything with it! Thanks Shayne

Ok... So i decided to restore again to the point just before joining it to the domain and of course, its getting DHCP. I've joined it to another domain that we have, and it works just fine... same DHCP servers as Domain1 (the one that doesn't work). So i suspect that i'm getting some GPO that's causing the issue, but I can't figure out what it would be. The GPO on Domain1 has nothing configured or enabled. I'm at a lost. Any ideas would be great.

So i've created a new OU and blocked inheritance of the GPO. So far that's working and DHCP is assigning the IP address. I have no idea what's in the default GPO that could be causing the issue. We have very little configured. Mostly stuff for the windows update service. We'll have to revisit this later... i've spent almost a week on this issue. If anyone else ever comes up with a solution, please let me know. Thanks Bob for your help.

do a gpresult /h c:\somefile.html and see what policies you have applied. or if you have access to RSAT run a policy result on your computer/user enabling admin should not have any bearing on this, as we do this all the time and have never seen an issue. -Dan

Do you have Windows Firewall policies configured? If so, check them one by one.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I've had the very same issue....As soon as the Windows 7 client joined the domain it would no longer receive IP addresses from the DHCP server. For a quick fix (and only having 1 Windows 7 client on a very small network) I assigned a static IP address and all worked fine. I know it's not a good long term solution, but it's worth it for testing purposes. Dean

Have the same issue. Windows Server 2003 Standard SP2 DC with Windows 7 Pro workstation and laptop. Both boxes have same behavior. DHCP works prior to joining domain and not after. Notice in local area connection status that packets received continues to rise in realtime, but no packets sent. Beyond the "answer" above, have you learned anything further about resolving the issue?

I'm not sure if this is a proper fix or not, but I fixed this by adding the local services and networkservices accounts to the local administrators group.

Every Windows 7 Pro that we brought online had this same issue at our site. I also solved this problem by adding the local services and network services accounts to the local administrators group. This solution integrates with DHCP, as opposed to assigning static IP addresses. Silveronetrx, thanks for your post. I would like to have a proper fix if there is one.Grayson

by "local administrators group" do you mean the account on the windows 7 box? or, do you mean the active directory administrators group on the DC?

On the windows 7 box, use MMC snap-in Local Users and Groups. Add local service and network service to the Administrators Group.Grayson

I'm not sure how to do that to the win 7 machine can you explain. Tks...