How can I quickly determine whether a domain controller (DC) is available for a specific domain?

A. To quickly check for a DC in a specific domain, go to the command prompt and type

nltest /dsgetdc:<domain name>

If your search is successful, the system will display information about that DC. For example,

C:\>nltest /dsgetdc:savilltech
DC: \\TITANIC
Address: \\200.200.200.1
Dom Guid: 9819e7e4-7beb-41d9-9923-dac38b1d342a
Dom Name: SAVILLTECH
Forest Name: ADS.SAVILLTECH
Dc Site Name: UK
Our Site Name: UK
Flags: DS LDAP KDC TIMESERV WRITABLE DNS_FOREST CLOSE_SITE
The command completed successfully

If your search fails, you'll receive a failure notice, such as

C:\>nltest /dsgetdc:test1
DsGetDcName failed: Status = 1355 0x54b ERROR_NO_SUCH_DOMAIN

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