We have some remote sites without DCs and DNS/DHCP servers that occasionally experience a network outage, preventing users and computers at those sites from authenticating with a DC. My understanding is that with cached credentials users still ought to be able to log into local servers using RDP from their desktops and thin clients. I tested this scenario in our test lab and was able to RDP into Windows Server 2008 boxes from both thin clients and desktops just fine; however, whenever I tried to RDP into a Windows Server 2003 box I got this error:
The System cannot log you on due to the following error:
The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.
Please try again or consult your system administrator.
I have verified that the Local Security Policy on these servers is set to cache the default 10 logins.
Is there a change in the mechanism for logging in via a RDP session using a cached login between Server 2003 and Server 2008? Whatever is preventing logging into a 2003 box doesn't exist with 2008 as RDP works just fine without DNS in that scenario. Are there any settings I can look at and change to make Server 2003 work like Server 2008?
Matthew