What does Windows error code 8600 (ERROR_DS_INVALID_SCRIPT) mean?

ERROR_DS_INVALID_SCRIPT

The Directory Service cannot process the script because it is invalid.

ERROR_DS_INVALID_SCRIPT is Windows status 8600 (0x00002198) associated with semantic validation of an NTDS script.

Likely impact: The script should be treated as untrusted input until every command is validated against the target environment.

Typical causes

• the script contains unsupported operations.
• required sections or metadata are missing.
• commands are valid individually but inconsistent together.
• the script targets an incompatible directory version.

Troubleshooting steps

1. Verify that the parsed script describes supported commands, objects, and operation ordering.
2. Collect parsed command inventory and script metadata and version.

Useful evidence

• Collect semantic validation diagnostic.
• Collect comparison with a known-valid script.

Recovery and retry

Regenerate the script with the supported tool or remove the invalid operation; do not bypass semantic validation.

Related errors

ERROR_DS_NTDSCRIPT_SYNTAX_ERROR is malformed text; this code can occur when syntax is valid but the script is not acceptable

Example

A hand-edited script parses successfully but requests an unsupported command sequence. Recreating it with the supported generator resolves the semantic failure.

References

• Microsoft: exact Win32 system error range
• Microsoft: AD DS troubleshooting
• Microsoft: dcdiag
• Microsoft: repadmin