Hi,
I have posted this in another large thread under the "Windows 8 General" group but have not had any appropriate feedback from MS.
After hours of testing and working with other users I have managed to isolate a simple situation that breaks all metro ui applications within Windows 8 for all users on the machine. Here are my exact steps and notes.
Before continuing if you are running Avast then your solution may be to turn of the behaviour shield functionality as this also breaks metro apps. This is NOT the problem we are having!
I have performed 3 cleans installs after isolating the problem and am able to reproduce the issue every time using the same steps on two different machines.
First thing to say is that for us it has nothing to do with simply joining the domain, domain/group policies nor does it appear to have anything to do with the software we installed, the problem here is much more simple but the result is pretty terrible.
Here are my exact steps of what I did to reproduce our problem:
- Complete format of HDD in preperation for a clean install
- Clean install performed
- Set up the machine initially with a local account
- Test metro apps - all working fine
- Open control panel from the desktop, click on System, change the system to join the domain, click reboot
- Log into the system using my domain account
- Test metro apps - all working fine
- Here's were the problem starts. I need my domain account to have admin rights on the local machine so I can install programs without the IT men having to come over and enter their password every 5 mins.
- I go to control panel via the desktop and click on User Accounts. From with here I then click on "Manage User Accounts". This requires the IT guys to enter their details to give me access to such functionality. This is fine
- In the dialog box that opens I can only see the local user that was initially created during setup. The "Group" for this local account shows as "Administrators" - Image included below (important to note that metro apps are working at this point)
- I click add and then add my domain account - also giving it administrator access
- Sign off or reboot to ensure the new security is applied
- Sign back in to the domain account
- Test metro - ALL BROKEN
- Sign out
- Sign in as local account
- Test Metro - NOW ALL BROKEN FOR THIS USER ALSO
So as soon as I add my domain account to the local user accounts and set it as admin it breaks all metro apps for all users. This is on a totally clean install with nothing at all installed other than the OS.
Annoyingly if I go back and change the domain account to a standard user or if I totally remove the domain account from the local account management system the problem does not go away for either user. basically it is now permanently broken. The only fix I could fathom was a full re install and not giving the domain user admin access to the local machine.
Screen one - this is the local user accounts window AFTER joining the domain and logging in with my domain account (All metro apps working at this point)
Screen 2: User accounts AFTER joining the domain and AFTER adding domain account to local user management (METRO BROKEN)
I have isolated my machine from all group policies so nothing like that is affecting me. Users I have spoken to in different companies have policies that automatically add users to the local user management. This means that metro apps break as soon as they join the domain which leads them to wrongly think it is group policies causing the error. Once they isolate themselves from this they can reproduce following my steps.
Thanks