How to disconnect from the domain

[Frank Rizzo]

I got a laptop from a company that went belly up. It was connected to
their domain, but I created a local admin account and everything was
good. However, they have some crazy password setting policies. So when I
created local accounts for my kids, the password policies are a problem.

I tried to disconnect from the domain, but it wants a userid/password
that has the authority to disconnect the computer from the domain. Given
that the company is history, I can't find anyone that has this
userid/password.

Attempts to go into Local Security Policy (secpol.msc) and change things
there have failed since everything is grayed out and I can't change
anything.

So, short of reinstalling Windows, how can I disconnect my laptop from
the domain?

 

[Graham Anderson]

What happens if you just enter junk into the username/password prompt (ie
just enter username as administrator and password as password)? The username
and password prompt should only be used for deleting the computer account
from active directory in the domain, and shouldn't prevent you from joining a
workgroup.

 

[Malke]

I got a laptop from a company that went belly up. It was connected to
their domain, but I created a local admin account and everything was
good. However, they have some crazy password setting policies. So when I
created local accounts for my kids, the password policies are a problem.

I tried to disconnect from the domain, but it wants a userid/password
that has the authority to disconnect the computer from the domain. Given
that the company is history, I can't find anyone that has this
userid/password.

Attempts to go into Local Security Policy (secpol.msc) and change things
there have failed since everything is grayed out and I can't change
anything.

So, short of reinstalling Windows, how can I disconnect my laptop from
the domain?

But you *should* do a clean install of Windows. There will be many pollicy
settings that will cause issues. Otherwise, log on as local administrator
and make your changes. Since you don't have the local administrator
password, you can blank it out with NTpasswd.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

But this really is not the best solution. A clean install of Windows is.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows - What
you will need on-hand

Malke

 

[John Wunderlich]

I got a laptop from a company that went belly up. It was connected
to their domain, but I created a local admin account and
everything was good. However, they have some crazy password
setting policies. So when I created local accounts for my kids,
the password policies are a problem.

I tried to disconnect from the domain, but it wants a
userid/password that has the authority to disconnect the computer
from the domain. Given that the company is history, I can't find
anyone that has this userid/password.

Attempts to go into Local Security Policy (secpol.msc) and change
things there have failed since everything is grayed out and I
can't change anything.

So, short of reinstalling Windows, how can I disconnect my laptop
from the domain?

How did you try to disconnect from domain?

From local administrator acct, did you try:

Right-Click "My Computer" -> Properties -> Computer Name (Tab) ->
Change -> click "Workgroup" (Give workgroup a name) -> "OK".

-- John