I tried to promote a Windows Server 2012 R2 instance to a domain controller at a remote site. It was looking normal until about 45 minutes into promoting it (the site was only linked by a T1). It unceremoniously failed. I could not back out or go forward.
I tried again with a new instance of the OS and about the same thing happened. Looking into the event log I saw this error:
An optional feature is enabled on this DC. However, the functional level of the forest is incompatible with the complete behavior of this optional feature.
This condition could be due to a delay in replication to this Active Directory Domain Controller of a change to the functional level of the forest, and may correct itself automatically. If this condition persists, manual intervention may be necessary.
User Action Raise the functional level of the forest to at least the minimum required functional level.
Optional feature: Recycle Bin Feature Minimum required functional level: 4 Current functional level: 4294967295
(The functional level returned is -1
using DWORD 2’c complement arithmetic)
I located the attribute in ADDS that stores the domain functional level and it is indeed set to 4.
Notes:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 promoted and replicated fine. Windows Server 2012, reported by my team, has promoted into the domain fine from a member server. Windows Server 2012 R2 on the other hand, I was the first to promote this. 2012 R2 erroneously reports the domain functional level as 4294967295 dec, FFFFFFFF hex, -1 in 2's complement. One immediately wants to consider the bandwidth as the culprit. I am thinking not due to this return value. As I get time to confirm that this is or not, I have already considered it. If there are other suggestions, please share.
- To distill it down to this: Why does Windows Server 2012 R2 not recognize the current functional level of the domain and forest, which are at the correct level?