Creating a new catalog in Citrix Desktop Studio with XenDesktop 5.5 throws the error: “Failed to create a computer account; computerName, due to an unknown error.” “Failed to add any computer accounts.”

Problem

You attempt to create a new catalog in Citrix Desktop Studio with XenDesktop 5.5 but the process throws the error:

Failed to create a computer account; computerName, due to an unknown error.

Failed to add any computer accounts.

Solution

This error is most likely due to the permissions assigned to the account you are using to create the catalog.  What I got confused at the beginning was the following:

I’ve always naturally assumed that the account that was being used to create the computer accounts in Active Directory was the one configured to connect to vCenter as shown here:

… but the truth is, when you create the catalogs, it’s actually not using that account.  The account that Desktop Studio is actually using is the account you’ve logged into the Windows server with and in turn is using to run XenDesktop’s Desktop Studio.  Most administrators may not realize this because we typically log into servers with domain administrator accounts and therefore have the permissions to create computer accounts in Active Directory.