Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

Hi,

Wonder if you can help. I have a laptop which I connect at work to a network (peer to peer - workgroup) and also connect at home on a peer to peer network (workgroup).

All machines running Windows XP Pro. At work we are about to under go a network re-vamp and move over to Domains.

Is it still possible to connect to my home network if my latop is configured to run on a a domain network and my home network remains as workgroup.

Or would I be best converting over at home too? Your advice is appreciated.

Cheers,

J

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

You will be able to drop out of the domain when you get home, but naturally, you'd only be able to re-join the domain once you're back in the office.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

Doesn't the log on screens change and everything? (i.e. Fast User Switch etc).

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

You lose the ability to do a fast user switch, but you can tick a box to logon locally to use whatever workgroup is set.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

OK great... obviously will become more apparent when I use it. Thanks for your help.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

When you logon you will have the option of logging into the domain or the local computer, when at home just log into the local computer. What ever you do do not remove it from the domain as it will cause problems with administrators.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

if you have network resources you use at home, being in a domain on your work machine will make no difference at all to being able to connect to your home resources.. moving you into a domain just makes life easier for your compny administrator to manage a large group of computers and roll out shares/apps/settings without having to visit each machine. It will not affect your connecting to machines that are not in a domain.

whatever you do, do NOT unjoin your computer from the domain when you are at home (of course you wont be able to do this without admin privilages anyway), neither do you need to switch between local and domain login on the login screen, just log in as usual.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

+1 to this advice.
You will annoy the hell out of the techy guys to the point where they will lock down your account till you cant even sneeze ;)
So long as (At work) they are not using something like a proxy server, you will be able to log on (As stated above) and work as normal. If they are using a proxy server at work then you might have to enquire about removing the settings from IE. But this is something to ask when they give you your laptop back in its new domain :)

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

What you can do is give the workgroup name at home the same name as the domain at work, and create a local account on the laptop that is the same as your domain user account. When you logon to the domain on the LAN, the PC stores your logon details. When disconnected from the LAN, you can still logon to the domain, though your logon is effectively local. You should still have access to workgroup resources because the domain/workgroup and usernames/passwords are the same.

Be default, any user can add upto 10 devices to the domain. Administrators may have fiddled with this though. Not aware of anything preventing a user from removing a machine from the domain though :erm: Administrators can only add 10 devices to the domain. To add more requires Account Operator rights. The default location for a machine account is the "Computers" OU, but most administrators, especially those that have power insecurities, like to create different folders for different types of computers - so different GPOs can be applied. Re-adding a PC to the domain would put the PC in the Computers OU, thus upsetting the administrator's schema - resulting in a tantrum.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

as long as your username and password are the some on the workgroup computers as you use to log into your domain account on your work pc, it will work seamlessly. you dont need to do anything else except map the drive/printer and go .. no messing with adding or removing from domains or chaging the workgroup name...

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

You could always use NetSwitcher... although it's probably overkill for what you're doing, but I used to use it a lot when I was at ACN.

Re: Domain - Workgroup Advice
 

Thanks for all the advice people. I am admin so I should be able to avoid the pitfalls you all mention.

Thanks.