Fix: The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed

This short post is really just for my own memory as I keep bumping into this with my virtual machines but I figured others might also find it useful. Typically when I do SharePoint development I do everything on an all-up server but with SharePoint 2013 I’ve moved my Domain Controller to a separate server (where I also will install the Office Web Apps); however, if I leave any of my machines off for a while then the computer password will expire which means that things start to break and you’ll see errors like “The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed.” The common fix is to remove the server from the domain and then join it back in but that takes some time so what I prefer to do is to simply run the following command which will reset the password:

netdom.exe resetpwd /s:**_domain\_controller\_name_** /ud:**_domain\administrator_** /pd:*

Be sure to replace the domain_controller_name placeholder with the name of your domain controller server. If you’re not already logged in to the server then you’ll have to log in using a local administrator account. After running the command it will prompt for a password for the specified account (it’s an odd prompt as it doesn’t show any characters being typed – not even masked). After providing the password reboot the server and you should be good to go.

If you want to prevent the server from changing its password in the first place (or prevent the DC from accepting the password change) you can follow the steps in this support article to disable the setting and avoid the issue altogether: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154501 (more times than not I forget to do this in new development environments which prompted me to post the reset password fix).

-Gary