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DirectAccess disappears in Windows 10

Razzi29 341 Reputation points
2020-04-20T13:30:58.2+00:00

My org has been using Microsoft DirectAccess for 2 years or so. Our clients are on Windows 10 Enterprise (1803,1809, 1909), recently in the last weeks since we sent people to work from home, we are experiencing that Windows Enterprise is downgrading by itself without warning to Windows Pro, and by doing that it removes DirectAccess which in turn no longer the client connects to our network. I done deep dive logging collection and analysis, and I am at lost where else to check. Our environment is hybrid, we have everything on Prem and we only use Office 365 and Azure for identity, no VM loads or anything on that platform other than Azure Active Directoy in hybrid. We also use MDM on our Windows 10 fleet. We are in desperate need to a solution as this is happening randomly on machines, but more and more we are getting this type of issues.

Microsoft Security | Microsoft Entra | Microsoft Entra ID
Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | User experience | Other

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  1. Teemo Tang 821 Reputation points
    2020-04-21T06:39:16.633+00:00

    Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Platform.

    If your organization use Windows 10 Enterprise E3 in CSP for clients Enterprise activation, current situation is possible.

    I found this on the E3 page:

    Roll back to Windows 10 Pro at any time. When a user’s subscription expires or is transferred to another user, the Windows 10 Enterprise device reverts seamlessly to Windows 10 Pro edition (after a grace period of up to 90 days).

    This Microsoft doc might point you in the right direction

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-10-enterprise-e3-overview

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-20T15:44:06.187+00:00

    Might check the application event log for related warnings / errors

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/volume-activation/monitor-activation-client

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  3. S.Sengupta 30,686 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-07-19T02:23:04.667+00:00

    If DirectAccess does not appear in the list, open an elevated PowerShell window and restart the Network Connectivity Assistant service (NcaSvc) using the following command.

    Restart-Service NcaSvc

    If you receive the error “Failed to start service ‘Network Connectivity Assistant (NcaSvc)‘”, ensure that the client operating system is Enterprise or Education edition. The NCA service will always fail to start on Professional edition as it is not a supported DirectAccess client.

    Log Collection

    The DirectAccess NCA also provides access to crucial troubleshooting information. Clicking on the Collect button creates a detailed diagnostic log file that is often helpful for troubleshooting DirectAccess connectivity issues.
    If you cannot collect log:

    To resolve this issue, open an elevated PowerShell window and enter the following command.

    New-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NcaSvc\” -Name SvcHostSplitDisable -PropertyType DWORD -Value 1 -Force

    The computer must be restarted for this change to take effect

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