Connecting a laptop that is used on an office nwk to a home nwk

[Guest]

I have a laptop running on XP professional, that is configured to operate on
a large offfice network which has a computer name like :
"TAO87609L.new_england.ted.win" and is connected thru a domain of
:".new_england.ted.win"
It works fine on the office network, but when I bring it home , I want to
connect it to my home "network" so that it can share a printer, internet
connection, and some file folders.

My PC at home is also running on XP professional, and I have connected a
changeover LAN cable to both the PC and the laptop.

I have tried countless times to get the two machines to recognise eachother,
but every time I try, I am informed that both computers must be in the same
workgroup to enable the connection. ( I have been prompted by the wizard to
create a network disk to run on the laptop )

By changing the LAN settings on the laptop, I will ruin its connection to
the office network when it returns to the office.

There must be a way around this, but so far I haven't found it.

Maybe there is some way of finding the workgroup name on the laptop, without
affecting the domain it is setup for.
I don't want to get into trouble again with the network administrator for
fiddling with the LAN settings on the laptop.

I have even setup a direct cable connection between the two, thinking I
could avoid changing the LAN settings, but alas, the workgroup must be the
same on both machines.

Help somebody please ?! I'm going crazy here @#!

I thought this kind of thing would be common, and XP would detect different
networks and do all the necessary automatically ?

 

[Guest]

I forgot to mention that both computers show a "network cable is unplugged"
message.

 

[Guido]

c&p'd from a source I don't have the url to.
If you need to plug your laptop into different networks, you can save and
restore the appropriate network configuration using the netsh.exe utility
which ships with W2K and XP. When you have your laptop correctly configured
for your office network, you can save the network configuration for later
restoration.
netsh -c interface dump > c:\configs\officeinterface.txt

Now lets say you take it home and reconfigure it correctly for you home
network. To save you home network configuration for later use:

netsh -c interface dump > c:\configs\homeinterface.txt

OK. Now you take the laptop back to the office and you need to reconfigure
for the office environment: nic address, wins, gateway address... Use the
following command to restore your office network interface:

netsh -f c:\configs\officeinterface.txt

At end of day, you take it home. To setup for home, run:

netsh -f c:\configs\homeinterface.txt

As you can imagine, this is very valuable if you have get your laptop to
function in multiple network locations.

hth

 

[Chuck]

c&p'd from a source I don't have the url to.
If you need to plug your laptop into different networks, you can save and
restore the appropriate network configuration using the netsh.exe utility
which ships with W2K and XP. When you have your laptop correctly configured
for your office network, you can save the network configuration for later
restoration.
netsh -c interface dump > c:\configs\officeinterface.txt

Now lets say you take it home and reconfigure it correctly for you home
network. To save you home network configuration for later use:

netsh -c interface dump > c:\configs\homeinterface.txt

OK. Now you take the laptop back to the office and you need to reconfigure
for the office environment: nic address, wins, gateway address... Use the
following command to restore your office network interface:

netsh -f c:\configs\officeinterface.txt

At end of day, you take it home. To setup for home, run:

netsh -f c:\configs\homeinterface.txt

As you can imagine, this is very valuable if you have get your laptop to
function in multiple network locations.

hth

Nice tool that "netsh -c int dump". Works for Win2K and WinXP. There are a few
articles written about it - I Googled briefly, and came up with:
<http://www.tech-geeks.org/contrib/mdrone/Using-NetSH-in-Win2KPro.txt>
<http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/41111/41111.html>
<http://www.wown.com/kbase/WindowsTi...figureyourlaptopsnicfordifferentnetworks.html>

Bubba, this will take care of the network settings, but it has nothing to do
with your ability (or lack) to "see" the workgroup. And you do NOT have to be
in the same workgroup.

If you look under Entire Network - Microsoft Windows Network, you will see all
computers in all workgroups anywhere, connected to your LAN (which long ago came
as a shock to new users of cable broadband internet, before the cable companies
wised up to the risk created).

--
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck sonic net.