How do you recover a lost domain name?

[Jonathan]

I wanted to network my dad's Windows 2000 laptop to my
Home XP computer. His computer requires a log on using a
user name, password and domain check. I stupidy changed
to domain name to WORKGROUP and now I can't get logged
on. Is there a way to restore the previous domain
settings? Can anyone help me? Plz post or email me.
Thanks,

Jonathan

 

[Gino]

On windows w2kpro you can either logon LOCALLY or if it is a member of a
MICROSOFT DOMAIN, logon to that DOMAIN.
To logon LOCALLY you can logon to the local Administrators account or any
account that is created LOCALLY, but you need the password.
To logon to a MICROSOFT DOMAIN you need to be connected to that DOMAIN
NETWORK so that you can be authenicated, however w2kpro caches these logon
user accounts locally so that if you are at home you can still get into the
laptop.
The problem is that when you changed the laptop over to a workgroup
these cached logons will not work. Even if you try and back track what you
did, the serial numbers (called SID's) will be incorrect. If you know the
password for the local Administrators account you could logon locally. But
to reconfigure the laptop to be able to connect to a company network will
require the Network Administrator to rejoin the laptop to the company
DOMAIN.

 

[Colin Nash [MVP]]

As mentioned, your dad will need to take it back to his work's IT department
and he will receive an angry glare from the overworked network administrator
who has better things to do than fix problems caused by kids messing with
company equipment.

ummm sorry maybe that's just what we do in our office

Anyway, you don't need to change the workgroup name in order to get two
computers to network with each other. The workgroup name is really just a
convenience for browsing the network (it puts them under the same 'group' in
My Network Places.)