How To Fix Group Policy: Error Windows could not determine if the user and computer accounts are in the same forest
If you have an issue where the User Policy doesn’t get updated and gives you an error about the user and computer accounts being in the same forest, then you’re in luck. The solution is actually rather simple, although an odd one that you usually wouldn’t run into. The full error message probably looks like this:
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> gpupdate
Updating policy…Computer Policy update has completed successfully.
User Policy could not be updated successfully. The following errors were encountered:The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not determine if the user and computer accounts are in the same forest. Ensure the user domain name matches the name of a trusted domain that resides in the same forest as the computer account.
HOW TO FIX GROUP POLICY: ERROR WINDOWS COULD NOT DETERMINE IF THE USER AND COMPUTER ACCOUNTS ARE IN THE SAME FOREST
To fix this error, you just need to start a Windows Service and you’ll probably want to set it to automatic to prevent the issue from coming back in the future.
- Click on Start
- Type in Services and select the one with the gear icon
- Scroll down and look for Netlogon, if the status is not Running, then that’s why you’re getting this issue
- Double-Click on Netlogon and change the Startup Type to Automatic and click the Start button
- Once the service is running, click the OK button
- Now try running gpupdate again