I'm told I cannot do this???

[bonehead]

Hi folks
Overview: I buy this laptop for work with xp pro to connect to their wireless network.
After waiting two weeks for the company tech to connect me($180.00 later) and create another logon everything works great.I can connect to the intranet both at home (cat5) and work ,wireless,with full access to the servers and printers. UNTIL...yesterday when I decided to network the XP laptop to my two win2k machines at home with cat 5 cable.The attempt at home worked great,I can see all 3 machines ect after a bit of cussing.I get done,happy with my networking victory and turn the laptop off for the night.
This morning when I go to work and turn on the laptop,I notice only one user on the login screen Whoops......not the one that the $180.00 bought me.The wireless connection is working, or at least it did till I called the tech guy( I think he shut me down after my conversation with him) but I had no access to office printers ect.

Soooo I called tech and told him about my networking adventureI had last night and he said
"You can't have your laptop networked at home(in a workgroup) and networked at work(domain) at the same time.It's impossible he said,pick where you want to use your laptop... work or home,you can;t have both.You'll need another service call to reconfigure for the office($90.00 an hr.):i disputed his "THATS IMPOSSIBLE" remark and eluded that I knew where to get the information to make it work.
I was brought up being told that nothing is impossible.........With your help, now I have to prove it to this guy,but only with the guidance from this board can it be done.

Foot's in mouth,help me guys.

Thanks, Steve

 

[netsysadmin]

That is correct...you can be either be in a domain or a workgroup not both at the same time.

John

 

[Nothinman]

To be a member of a domain your computer has to login to the domain with it's own account seperate from your own (each computer has an account called computername$ in the domain) and when you remove it from the domain it loses the password for that account and has to have the account reset and the machine rejoined to the domain.

You can use it at both places, but you can't remove it from the domain and put it in the workgroup when you get home.

 

[bonehead]

Any third party software that will allow this or can I create a domain at home.
I still find it difficult to believe that if I buy a laptop for work on a domain ,I can't use it at home on a network also. Creating different users with different setups maybe?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Nothinman]

If you create a domain at home it'll be worse because you can't be joined to 2 domains at the same time either.

You can use it at both places, but you can't remove your machine from the home domain (i.e. join it to another domain or workgroup) and expect to just join back up without any intervention. NT caches credentials for 10 days by default, IIRC, so you can still even login at home with your domain account and keep all the settings or if you want you can create a different local account for home use, just don't remove yourself from the domain.

 

[Bovinicus]

You would just have to switch the network settings on the laptop between a workgroup and domain every time you go from work to home.

 

[SpanishFry]

In the meantime though, to get back your company domain settings I would do a system restore to the time when that tech came.

 

[Nothinman]

You would just have to switch the network settings on the laptop between a workgroup and domain every time you go from work to home.

You can't do that, rejoining the domain every day would be a PITA because it requires a resetting of the computer account in the domain.

In the meantime though, to get back your company domain settings I would do a system restore to the time when that tech came.

That may or may not work, I know that the computer changes it's domain account password periodically but I'm not sure if anything happens if the password isn't changed after a certain amount of time.

 

[bonehead]

"NT caches credentials for 10 days by default, IIRC, so you can still even login at home with your domain account and keep all the settings".thanks,but how do I find these credentials to re set?I don't know the domain.

 

[Nothinman]

The domain should appear in a dropdown box at login time if you're joined to one.

 

[bonehead]

The drop down box I had yesterday is now gone.Ionly have 1 log on acct now?????????????

 

[Nothinman]

Well you need to rejoin that domain before you can do anything, a restore to back before you f'd with the network settings may help you get the domain name but it's a coin-flip as to whether you'll actually still be joined to it or not without talking to the domain admins and rejoining manually.

 

[8ballcoupe]

It seems that what you really need to do is to talk with the system admins at work and ask them if they can allow you to have access to the resources you need at work WITHOUT joining the domain. If they are willing to allow that (And you need to realize that it may not be unreasonable for them to refuse.) then you can use the computer as a workgroup computer at home and a standalone just attached to the network at work when you are at the office. This is the arrangement I use on the various networks to which I attach my personal notebook computers.

Ernie

 

[ktwebb]

No. Stay on the company domain. Too many management and push issues to not be on it if your company updates your machine this way. If it is a work laptop then it's that. Doesn't mean you can't use it at home and it doesn't mean you can't network it to your other machines either. Anyone who tells you different is on crack. As has already been mentioned, you can use cached credentials to logon locally. Now, you might not be able to use network places to use your home LAN resources. That is NOT a big loss. It's a piece of crap anyway as far as a connectivity tool goes. Map drives via any other number of ways, or browse as well. You will need to talk to you network guys and have them re-add you to the company domain.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: ktwebb
No. Stay on the company domain. Too many management and push issues to not be on it if your company updates your machine this way. If it is a work laptop then it's that. Doesn't mean you can't use it at home and it doesn't mean you can't network it to your other machines either. Anyone who tells you different is on crack. Now, you might not be able to use network places. That is NOT a big loss. It's a piece of crap anyway as far as a connectivity tool goes. Map drives via any other number of ways, or browse as well. You will need to talk to you network guys and have them re-add you to the company domain.

agreed. be added to the domain again.

When you're home just log on locally and map your drives if needed. Assign rights on the stuff you're sharing and you're all set.

 

[8ballcoupe]

I see the point being made by ktwebb and spidey07, but I would have to say the way you go with this varies by the situation. They're looking at it from the standpoint of system administrators who have to keep the herd updated. On the other hand I'm a careful guy who has to connect to resources on networks that aren't managed very well. No way I would allow one of my own notebooks to be co-opted into one of those domains. They need me to use their networks. I need to be able to use my notebooks. They're the guys who lose servers and data all of the time. I never lose OS installations (except on sandbox systems) or data. So I handle it the way I outlined. If the notebook was purchased by work, or even if it's yours but is going to be used at work for your benefit, then they have a right to insist that it abide by their rules. I think I alluded to that when I said that it wouldn't be unreasonable for the sysadmins to refuse to acceed to the request.

Ernie

 

[bonehead]

Another way?
Can I partition the hard drive and install xp again in the new partition and dual boot ie: boot up screen...xp1 xp2.
Pick xp1 for work xp 2 for home.Have the work domain setup on one and the workgroup on the other.Will this work?.
WouldI have to re-activate xp if I did this...it's the same laptop?
Thanks again for any help.

 

[8ballcoupe]

I suppose that's feasible. Huh, I've never done a dual boot of WinXP with itself before. If activation works the way I think it does you will have to activate both installations, but they should both go through without incident since the hardware/system hashes should be (?) identical from both installations. In the worst case because of the timing of the installation activations you'll see a screen when you attempt the second activation that tells you to call a toll-free number. Just call it and explain the dual boot situation to the Microsoft support person. I'm sure they'll have no objection to giving you the manually entered code to complete the activation for the second instance of the OS on the same machine.

You'll have to weigh the minor hassles of dual booting against whatever benefits you get from having one work installation and one private installation to do with as you please. When you're logged into a domain the domain's policies override your local policy settings. The domain admins will also have access to your second partition as well, so there is nothing that can really be kept private (short of stuff you encrypt with third party encryptors) on that "private" partition.

It sounds like IT there is pretty liberal since they were happy enough to let you join the domain with a personal machine. You might talk over the pros and cons with them, if there's someone there with whom you have good rapport. They may be able to help you decide which way will be easiest to go.

It is possible for you to use the notebook both at home (sharing printers and files and using the Internet connection) and at work as a member of the domain (or NOT as a member of the domain, depending upon just what types of access you need at work). Sometimes this can be done very easily with the built-in tools that come with WinXP (fixed IP one place, DHCP at the other) so that you just plug the system in at both places and it works. Sometimes you have to manually reconfigure the machine or use a third party tool that saves various networking profiles and applies them for you at boot time. And, of course, your idea about using two different WinXP installations would work.

If you go this way remember that you have to keep BOTH installations updated. That's drivers, security updates, software updates -- everything.

Frankly, I think that the simplest way for you, assuming you don't actually have to be a domain member and assuming that you can use a fixed IP at one place and DHCP at the other AND assuming that IT has no objection, is to do it the first way I suggested.

I have to use corporate intranets without joining domains because of the nature of data stored on my notebooks. There would be a conflict of interest in allowing the possibility of one client having domain admin access to a machine on which data about other clients resided.

Ernie

 

[Nothinman]

Can I partition the hard drive and install xp again in the new partition and dual boot ie: boot up screen...xp1 xp2.
Pick xp1 for work xp 2 for home.Have the work domain setup on one and the workgroup on the other.Will this work?.
WouldI have to re-activate xp if I did this...it's the same laptop?

You could do that, but yes you'd have to activate both copies and I'm not sure what MS would think of that. But really, what's the problem with just leaving the notebook on the domain? Tons of people do that at my company and they all use their notebooks at home without problems, what are your problems?

 

[XPFTP]

hello . i have had kind of the same pro lem and i havent tried this yet but seen the software. sorry not rememeber wher ebut do a serch and iam sur eu will find it with some hunting. there is software for people who just like u have this problem it saves ur settings and makes a list that u can click on the one u want. like home and it sets ur computer to the home network setting then when at work u click on like work and so on. again i have not tried it but its worth a go. if i come across the software ill post u the link . but for sure wont be rite away. how u say to much time not enough things to do lol i wish good luck

 

[Chunkee]

run a dual boot like i did

work and home

JC out

 

[bluwing]

Hi,

Why not create another user account with admin privledges for home and restore the original?

bluwing

 

[spidey07]

I still don't understand the problem.

log on locally when you're at home. all set.

 

[ktwebb]

Exactly. Practically this entire thread is a exercise in futility. There is no problem.

 

[8ballcoupe]

Can't we all agree that there are different ways to skin this particular cat? That not all company intranets and not all end users (especially those who bring their own computers to work) fit exactly the same mold?

I believe the originator of the thread wishes to examine alternatives. From an examination of the thread content I'm not really sure just exactly what this computer is used for at work and at home. As I mentioned before I know of some types of situations where making a personal computer a member of a domain might not be prudent. I'm also familiar with at least some of the issues of letting a non-member computer connect to a company intranet. It's up to bonehead and IT to work out the details of implementation in this particular case. It sounds as though he got a tech with a somewhat dismissive attitude. Now maybe that tech's attitude is representative of policy, and maybe it's not.

I thought we were just discussing a few possible alternatives here. I'm not sure that simply dismissing all alternatives except the ones some particpators feel are best from their own vantage points is necessarily in the best interests of the guy asking the initial question.

Put another way if I'm the sysadmin at the office I want everyone connected to my network to be under my control, and if I'm the guy bringing his personal notebook to the office I'm not so sure about surrendring control. In extreme cases either viewpoint may be absolutely right, and the other one absolutely wrong. In other than extreme cases, perhaps there is room for negotiation / compromise / consideration.

Ernie