Laptop does not know if it is on or off the network

[Jordan]

I have a couple of laptops that have a problem with certain features like
roaming profiles and syncronization where they do not seem to know when they
are off the network. Sometimes when starting up at home or elsewhere a
couple of laptops will give the users an error that it cannot find their
roaming profile. Also a lot of the time when they shut down syncronization
will not be able to run (of course) and shutdown just sits at the file
syncronization screen with the failure message forcing the users to press
OK.

All computers are XP Pro SP2 and all patches up to a month or two ago.
Server that holds the roaming profiles and the files that the user is trying
to sync is a W2K DC with all the latest patches.

 

[Jarred]

Is network configured properly? Can you connect using another computer?

 

[Jordan]

Yes,

When connected to the network, or any other network, connections seem fine.
I can browse the Internet and everything else from home or where ever
without an issue.

What is happening is that the laptop does not realized that it is not on the
domain at the time and it tries to do things like update my roaming proflile
when I log onto the laptop from home and syncronize my offline files as
well. All my other units know when they are off the domain and do not try
to sync files or download roaming profiles.

Working laptops know when they are off the domain and they do not attempt to
sync files or profiles, but they do know when a VPN connection fires up to
work and they can detect that they are on the domain then and prompt to sync
then as they should. These non-working units just always assume that any
network connection is on the domain and attempt to connect, then fail, then
operate fine but just annoy me with the sync issue at logon and logoff.