When trying to update our Automated Pool after upgrading to View 4.5, we ran into an issue where the virtual desktops being provisioned would fail with an error saying they could not join the domain. If we logged into the virtual desktops through the vSphere client, the machine were actually, in fact, on the domain.

Checking the C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-viewcomposer-ga-new.log file, we could see the following error:

2010-09-10 10:13:08,284 [3636] FATAL CSvmGaService – [svmGaService.cpp, 116] Domain join failedError 1265 (0x4f1): The system detected a possible attempt to compromise security. Please ensure that you can contact the server that authenticated you.

We had full rights to join the domain with the account in question, and we didn’t have any problem using our QuickPrep settings with 4.0.1, so this was quite a mystery. We called VMware Support, and we ran through several troubleshooting routes with no avail. Eventually, through the VMware Communities forum, a VMware employee suggested we try Microsoft KB 944043. The patch provided within this KB is not applied by default with normal updates.

It appears that in 4.5, VMware has modified the QuickPrep process which causes this issue to occur. Luckily, this is an easy fix if you know about it.