Microsoft released Patch Tuesday updates for Windows installations a couple of weeks ago, and while the rollout has been mostly smooth, a few issues have popped up here and there too. A notable issue involves installation failure when installing this update, but Microsoft only has workarounds for now. The company has now acknowledged yet another bug in Windows Server 2016.
In a recent update to its support document for KB5087537, released on May 12 for Windows Server 2016, Microsoft has confirmed that Domain Controller lookup may fail in certain cases on this particular SKU. More specifically, if the hostname is more than 15 characters long, DCLocator calls such as those leveraging nltest /dsgetdc: /pdc will throw an ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER error.
This will block domain controller discovery for applications and administrative utilities, which is a bit of a nuisance. One notable use-case impacted by this bug is DFS Namespace management.
Unfortunately, Microsoft does not have a concrete fix or even a workaround right now, so IT admins are left high and dry, for now. The Redmond tech giant says that it is actively investigating the issue and will provide additional details as they become available. It's possible that a fix may land with the next Patch Tuesday, which is scheduled for June 9, but it's unlikely that Microsoft will delay a bugfix for an important issue such as this, just to align with Patch Tuesday cadence.
We checked the change logs for other supported versions of Windows Server too, namely Windows Server 2019, 2022, and 2025, and they appear to be unaffected by the problem, which should be a relief for many IT admins. While we are on the topic, Microsoft recently opened a Windows Update path for Windows Server 2025, enabling in-place upgrades with some caveats. You can find out additional details here.
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