Domain connection shows as “unauthenticated”

One possible reason for this issue is when the machine account password gets out of sync with the domain controller.

This can happen, for example, if the computer account in Active Directory is manually removed and re-added, or if the client machine has been restored to an earlier point in time (machine account passwords are automatically changed every 30 days).

What worked for me was to reset the machine account password manually by executing Reset-ComputerMachinePassword in an elevated(!) PowerShell:

PS> Reset-ComputerMachinePassword -Credential MYDOMAIN\SomeDomainAdminAccount

After rebooting (or disabling and re-enabling the network card, if you don’t want to reboot), the (unauthenticated) note should be gone.

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