Hi,
I have a laptop with XP professional. I travel between several sites with
different Domains and network settings.
What is the best way to set my machine up to either select the domains as
simply as possible or to have some other way to select the logon/network
settings without having to go into networking and changing the settings
manually.
Thanks,
Keith
Keith,
There are two issues here:
1) Network connectivity.
2) Domain authentication.
Network connectivity issues are best solved with DHCP. If all of the
networks you will be moving between provide DHCP service, then you can
set your computer to use DHCP. Anytime you plug it in (or just turn
it on if wireless), all your computer has to do is request DHCP
service from the local DHCP server, which will give it an ip address,
and the address of the nearby internet gateway.
If all you're looking for is internet connectivity, no need to read
any further. If you will be using any domain resources, whether in
your local work area or in a remote office when visiting, your laptop
needs to be part of a domain.
Your laptop can be "joined" to any domain, in a two way trust
relationship. The owner of the laptop (you) must trust the domain,
and the domain must trust the laptop. You have to login to the laptop
as a local administrator, and have a domain administrator "join" the
laptop to the domain under his authentication.
Generally, you would join the domain in your local office. Then you
can access resources in your local office when working there, and you
can access those same resources, remotely, when visiting a remote
office.
If you will be using local resources when visiting remote offices, the
domain in each remote office will need to trust your home domain. If
your laptop authenticates thru domain A (your home domain), and you
connect it to network B, you will be able to login to domain A and
access resources on domain A. If you need local resources on domain
B, such as printers, local files, etc, then domain B will have to
trust domain A, so you can access resources in domain B while
authenticated thru domain A.
Unfortunately, as you may have noted, your computer can be a member of
a workgroup, or of a single domain, but not both. For the domain
model to be useful, any network that you might physically connect to
must be physically connected to your home domain. If you connect your
laptop to your home workgroup, and you're running a DHCP service
there, you'll be able to access the internet, but sharing files or
printer access there will be a challenge.
If you take your laptop home, and change it to be a member of the
domain or workgroup there, when you take the laptop back to your
office, your domain admin at the office will have to rejoin it to the
domain there.
In the case where you need to move the laptop between the office and
home, you'll leave it a member of the office domain, but use a local
account on the laptop when at home. How you'll share resources at
home will be another story.
Cheers,
Chuck
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