KBI 310277 Careful Of NetBIOS Names Containing Periods

Version

All versions – AT and XT and PowerShell

Date

7 Dec 2011

Summary

If Active Directory NetBIOS name contains a period, then the “Get-User -Identity $RoleLoggedOnUser” command will fail.

Technical Background

A period is not a valid character for a NetBIOS domain name.

The Get-User -Identity cannot look up an account in the format of domain.name\administrator, where domain.name is the actual NetBIOS domain name.

Since the Get-User command cannot work, it returns Null, which results in the error:

The execution of: “ $error.Clear(); $user = Get-User -Identity $RoleLoggedOnUser; Set-User -Identity $user.Identity -RemotePowerShellEnabled $true;” generated the following error: “Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘Identity’ because it is null.

Resolution

Be careful when working with Active Directory NetBIOS naming conventions of clients.

Be mindful of periods within the NetBIOS naming convention and where possible do not use periods.

Note:

This major Microsoft bug can cause issues in any vendor’s product.