Unable to add my user account to docker-users group

Question

I have been trying to install docker-desktop. I followed the official documentation

My installation failed with this error : Component Docker.Installer.AddToGroupAction failed: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation

(Keep in mind that I have Windows 11 Home Edition, which means I don't have access to Local Users and Groups in Computer Management)

After a bit of research, I concluded that the error is arising from Windows and not Docker.

I tried "net localgroup" command into administrator command prompt and I noticed that the docker-users group was created. When i use "net localgroup docker-users" i see that there are no members in that group.

C:\Windows\System32>net localgroup docker-users 

Alias name     docker-users 

Comment 

Members 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The command completed successfully.

So, then I tried to manually add my account to the group using "net localgroup docker-users <username> /add" but the command failed with the below error

System error 234 has occurred. 

More data is available.

I tried to dig into eventviewer, but got confused as to what filter to use for this particular problem.

Then, I tried to delete the group and recreate it myself. I tried the below.

C:\Windows\System32>net localgroup docker-users /delete 

The command completed successfully. 

C:\Windows\System32>net localgroup docker-users /add 

The command completed successfully. 

C:\Windows\System32>net localgroup docker-users <username> /add 

System error 234 has occurred. 

More data is available.

I would highly appreciate any help. Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi BCodes,

Thanks for your post. Before moving on, please double confirm that to run Windows containers, you need Windows 10 or Windows 11 Professional or Enterprise edition. Windows Home or Education editions only allow you to run Linux containers.

Also, please run this command from an administrator command window to add your user id to the docker-users group and log back into your user account for it to take effect.

net localgroup docker-users "your-user-id" /ADD

"your-user-id" is your local Windows user name. You can determine this by looking at the folder name under C:\Users\ or use in the command window whoami to show it.

TIP: You probably will need to restart the system, to make the change active.

Best Regards,

Ian Xue

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Answer 2

Actually this issue is not limited just to docker, after an update restart a few days ago I got a similar situation. MMC does not list any group, net localgroup does list the groups, but I cannot add modify or delete any group or membership.

SFC scannow says everything is ok.

Answer 3

Found my issue in case it helps, my SAM went bad somehow after last windows update.

This entry would be

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM\SAM\Domains\Account\Aliases]
@=""

Instead of (as I compared with other working systems to be have a reference

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM\SAM\Domains\Account\Aliases]
@=hex(0):

Created a new reg file and imported it with a task running as SYSTEM. All good now!

The way I got to this is by tracing events, then concluding there was a problem with SAM, and finally monitoring registry activity while reproducing the issue with procmon, which revealed that in any tests I would do Aliases would be the last call before the error