Joined workgroup, now login doesn't work

29 Nov 2006 12:03 AM

ruger3717

I was trying to use a shared printer so I added my laptop (XP pro) to the
workgroup. After restart, I can no longer log on to my laptop. It doesn't
accept my username and password anymore. How do I get back on my laptop?

29 Nov 2006 12:23 AM

Malke

ruger3717 wrote:

> I was trying to use a shared printer so I added my laptop (XP pro) to
> the
> workgroup. After restart, I can no longer log on to my laptop. It
> doesn't
> accept my username and password anymore. How do I get back on my
> laptop?

You haven't provided much information, but I'm going to guess that you
had a laptop that was a member of a domain at work and you wanted to
use the printer at home. So you changed the domain membership to your
home workgroup, breaking the domain trust completely. You can't log in
any more with your work username/password because your laptop is no
longer a member of the domain.

You need to take the laptop to work and have your IT Dept. rejoin it to
the domain. I'll give you ways of using your home network resources
with your domain-member laptop, but you should definitely check with
your IT Dept. first because they may have an opinion about you doing
this.

Per MVP Lanwench - You don't need to change to a workgroup just to
access resources on it. You shouldn't play with your laptop's network
settings at all. Once you've logged in using your domain account (using
cached credentials), and have an IP address on the home network, you
can map drives, use printers, whatnot, very easily - one way, in a
command line:

net use x: \\computername\sharename /user:computername\username <enter>

MS KB article about the Net Use command - http://tinyurl.com/3bpnj

Also see:

Managing One Windows XP-based Laptop for the Office and Home by MVP
Charlie Russel
http://tinyurl.com/cpy9q

http://winhlp.com/wxdomainworkgroup.htm - MVP Hans-Georg Michna

Malke

--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

29 Nov 2006 1:26 AM

ruger3717

That's exactly what happened. I completely understand why I can't use my
work domain login. What I don't understand is if I changed the laptop's
domain from the work domain to my home workgroup, why can't I log in at all?
Seems to me I should be able to log in to the home workgroup, which I did not
set up username and passwords for. So it should let me on.

Here's a hypothetical where this would be an issue. Say I bought the laptop
from my company because I was quitting and I no longer had access to the
original domain the laptop login was created for. Why would windows let you
make the computer a member of another domain(workgroup), but provide no way
for you to log in? At this point, I would have an expensive paperweight
because it won't let me use the old login information, but it also won't let
me login to the new domain. What sense does that make?? There should be
another solution besides having IT rejoin it to the previous domain.

Show quoteHide quote

"Malke" wrote:

> ruger3717 wrote:
>
> > I was trying to use a shared printer so I added my laptop (XP pro) to
> > the
> > workgroup. After restart, I can no longer log on to my laptop. It
> > doesn't
> > accept my username and password anymore. How do I get back on my
> > laptop?
>
> You haven't provided much information, but I'm going to guess that you
> had a laptop that was a member of a domain at work and you wanted to
> use the printer at home. So you changed the domain membership to your
> home workgroup, breaking the domain trust completely. You can't log in
> any more with your work username/password because your laptop is no
> longer a member of the domain.
>
> You need to take the laptop to work and have your IT Dept. rejoin it to
> the domain. I'll give you ways of using your home network resources
> with your domain-member laptop, but you should definitely check with
> your IT Dept. first because they may have an opinion about you doing
> this.
>
> Per MVP Lanwench - You don't need to change to a workgroup just to
> access resources on it. You shouldn't play with your laptop's network
> settings at all. Once you've logged in using your domain account (using
> cached credentials), and have an IP address on the home network, you
> can map drives, use printers, whatnot, very easily - one way, in a
> command line:
>
> net use x: \\computername\sharename /user:computername\username <enter>
>
> MS KB article about the Net Use command - http://tinyurl.com/3bpnj
>
> Also see:
>
> Managing One Windows XP-based Laptop for the Office and Home by MVP
> Charlie Russel
> http://tinyurl.com/cpy9q
>
> http://winhlp.com/wxdomainworkgroup.htm - MVP Hans-Georg Michna
>
> Malke
> --
> Elephant Boy Computers
> www.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
>

29 Nov 2006 3:25 AM

Malke

ruger3717 wrote:

> That's exactly what happened. I completely understand why I can't use
> my
> work domain login. What I don't understand is if I changed the
> laptop's domain from the work domain to my home workgroup, why can't I
> log in at all? Seems to me I should be able to log in to the home
> workgroup, which I did not
> set up username and passwords for. So it should let me on.

(snip)

No, that's not the way it works. In a multi-user operating system like
XP you have user accounts. At the minimum, you have the built-in
Administrator account which is a *local* (non-domain) account. After
your computer is joined to a domain, you now have two types of user
accounts - the local account(s) and the domain account.

Your home computers *do* have user accounts - you just don't realize it
because you probably bought OEM machines (HP, Dell, etc.) and they log
in directly to the Desktop. If you didn't make additional user
accounts, those computers have two user accounts - the one you are
using which is probably called something like "Owner" and is the
generic user account created by the OEM because they don't know who is
going to buy the machine - and the built-in Administrator account,
which is normally hidden.

Most businesses do not set up local user accounts, leaving only the
local Administrator and password-protecting it. So when you disjoined
the computer from the domain, your domain user account was no longer
available to you. That account is authenticated by the workplace server
when you log in. That left the local Administrator account. If you know
the local Administrator password, you can log in locally. Most
businesses would not tell end users the local Administrator account
password. There are ways of changing the local Administrator password
to a blank so you can get in, but I don't suggest doing this since it
will only annoy your IT Dept. even more.

Malke

--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

29 Nov 2006 12:26 AM

Doug Sherman [MVP]

Sounds like the computer was originally joined to a domain. If this was the
case, then you were logging on with a domain user account. When you join a
workgroup, you must logon with a local user account. Your laptop has a
built-in local user account called Administrator and it may have others.
However, if you do not know the password for such an account, you will have
to rejoin the domain in order to logon. You must be physically or
wirelessly connected to a domain in order to join it.

Doug Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, MCP+I, MVP

Show quoteHide quote

"ruger3717" <ruger3***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F65EC95E-877E-4226-8E17-549FE6446176@microsoft.com...
> I was trying to use a shared printer so I added my laptop (XP pro) to the
> workgroup. After restart, I can no longer log on to my laptop. It
doesn't
> accept my username and password anymore. How do I get back on my laptop?
>

29 Nov 2006 12:34 AM

John Wunderlich

=?Utf-8?B?cnVnZXIzNzE3?= <ruger3***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote

in news:F65EC95E-877E-4226-8E17-549FE6446176@microsoft.com:

> I was trying to use a shared printer so I added my laptop (XP pro)
> to the workgroup. After restart, I can no longer log on to my
> laptop. It doesn't accept my username and password anymore. How
> do I get back on my laptop?
>
>

Before adding it to the workgroup, was it part of a domain?
If so... not good.

"You Cannot Log On After You Remove the Computer from the Domain"
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317049/en-us>

HTH,
John