Why impossible -- domain laptop access home workgroup

[Guest]

After much online research, I've concluded that my laptop
cannot access my home network, because the laptop is a
member of my domain at work, and my home network is
configured as a workgroup.

The article that finally convinced me to stop looking was
this:

www.microsoft.com/hardware/broadbandnetworking/10_concept_
switch_workgroups_domains.mspx

My reason for posting is not to seek a solution (since
there is none), but to ask a question: Why isn't this
possible? It simply doesn't make sense to me that a
computer that belongs to a secure network cannot access a
network that is LESS secure.

I just want a succint, rational explanation for this
problem. Any contribution would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Richard G. Harper]

I don't know how you're trying to accomplish this, but I can access my
workgroup at home with my laptop from my domain at work just fine. Perhaps
if you share some details of how you're attempting this (and perhaps more
importantly, how you're failing or what error messages you're seeing) we can
help.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* for the benefit of all. Private mail is usually not replied to.
* My website, such as it is ... http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

After much online research, I've concluded that my laptop
cannot access my home network, because the laptop is a
member of my domain at work, and my home network is
configured as a workgroup.

The article that finally convinced me to stop looking was
this:

www.microsoft.com/hardware/broadbandnetworking/10_concept_
switch_workgroups_domains.mspx

My reason for posting is not to seek a solution (since
there is none), but to ask a question: Why isn't this
possible? It simply doesn't make sense to me that a
computer that belongs to a secure network cannot access a
network that is LESS secure.

I just want a succint, rational explanation for this
problem. Any contribution would be appreciated. Thanks.

Fortunately, you're mistaken. You can access resources on your home
workgroup just fine without mucking up your laptop's domain membership.

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>

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your offer to help.

Before I give details, first let me apologize for the petulance displayed in
my original post. It was written in the heat of frustration, and in
retrospect is painfully disrespectful to the security concerns of corporate
IT professionals.

OK, now for the details. The XP Pro laptop belongs to my work domain. When I
get on the LAN at home, I see my home workgroup in My Network Places\Entire
Network\Microsoft Windows Network. When I click on the workgroup name (right
or left click), there's a momentary pause, then the following error:

"Workgroup is not accessible. You might not have permissions to use this
network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you
have access permissions. The network path was not found."

My home LAN is a straightforward peer-to-peer workgroup. The connecting
device is a broadband wireless router. I'm able to ping the IP address (not
network name) of the other computers in the workgroup from the XP laptop.
I've made sure the browsing service is turned on, and that NetBIOS over
TCP/IP is enabled on the XP laptop. There is a firewall on the router, but I
haven't disabled this yet because a) I can ping across the router, b) the
other computers in the workgroup (one of which is also XP Pro) can share its
resources and access other shares, and c) if I have to disable the router
firewall anytime I want to access my home LAN, that ain't happening.

I don't know how you're trying to accomplish this, but I can access my
workgroup at home with my laptop from my domain at work just fine. Perhaps
if you share some details of how you're attempting this (and perhaps more
importantly, how you're failing or what error messages you're seeing) we can
help.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* for the benefit of all. Private mail is usually not replied to.
* My website, such as it is ... http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

After much online research, I've concluded that my laptop
cannot access my home network, because the laptop is a
member of my domain at work, and my home network is
configured as a workgroup.

The article that finally convinced me to stop looking was
this:

www.microsoft.com/hardware/broadbandnetworking/10_concept_
switch_workgroups_domains.mspx

My reason for posting is not to seek a solution (since
there is none), but to ask a question: Why isn't this
possible? It simply doesn't make sense to me that a
computer that belongs to a secure network cannot access a
network that is LESS secure.

I just want a succint, rational explanation for this
problem. Any contribution would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Richard G. Harper]

See the reply Lanwench posted about twenty minutes before your reply to me,
as I suspect it contains all the information you need to overcome your
problem. By all means do not disable the firewall on your router, as it is
essential to your safety and not a part of your problem.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* for the benefit of all. Private mail is usually not replied to.
* My website, such as it is ... http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

Thank you for your offer to help.

Before I give details, first let me apologize for the petulance displayed
in
my original post. It was written in the heat of frustration, and in
retrospect is painfully disrespectful to the security concerns of
corporate
IT professionals.

OK, now for the details. The XP Pro laptop belongs to my work domain. When
I
get on the LAN at home, I see my home workgroup in My Network
Places\Entire
Network\Microsoft Windows Network. When I click on the workgroup name
(right
or left click), there's a momentary pause, then the following error:

"Workgroup is not accessible. You might not have permissions to use this
network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if
you
have access permissions. The network path was not found."

My home LAN is a straightforward peer-to-peer workgroup. The connecting
device is a broadband wireless router. I'm able to ping the IP address
(not
network name) of the other computers in the workgroup from the XP laptop.
I've made sure the browsing service is turned on, and that NetBIOS over
TCP/IP is enabled on the XP laptop. There is a firewall on the router, but
I
haven't disabled this yet because a) I can ping across the router, b) the
other computers in the workgroup (one of which is also XP Pro) can share
its
resources and access other shares, and c) if I have to disable the router
firewall anytime I want to access my home LAN, that ain't happening.

I don't know how you're trying to accomplish this, but I can access my
workgroup at home with my laptop from my domain at work just fine.
Perhaps
if you share some details of how you're attempting this (and perhaps more
importantly, how you're failing or what error messages you're seeing) we
can
help.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* for the benefit of all. Private mail is usually not replied to.
* My website, such as it is ... http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

After much online research, I've concluded that my laptop
cannot access my home network, because the laptop is a
member of my domain at work, and my home network is
configured as a workgroup.

The article that finally convinced me to stop looking was
this:

www.microsoft.com/hardware/broadbandnetworking/10_concept_
switch_workgroups_domains.mspx

My reason for posting is not to seek a solution (since
there is none), but to ask a question: Why isn't this
possible? It simply doesn't make sense to me that a
computer that belongs to a secure network cannot access a
network that is LESS secure.

I just want a succint, rational explanation for this
problem. Any contribution would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Leythos]

After much online research, I've concluded that my laptop
cannot access my home network, because the laptop is a
member of my domain at work, and my home network is
configured as a workgroup.

This has already been explained a number of times, but here goes again.

On your home computer, assuming 2000 or XP, assign a password to the
administrator user - in fact, assign a password for every user, it
should have been that way to start.

Create a user on the computer with the same name as you use on your
laptop, give it the same password as the laptop user.

Now, when you want to access files on the home computer, open Explorer
(NOT IE) and type \\computername\share where you replace the
"computername" with the network name of your home computer, and "share"
with the shared resource name of the share on the home computer.

If you want to share a printer on your home computer you NEED to first
authenticate the laptop to the home computer as in above, then you can
do this \\computername\ (leave the space after the ending \ blank) when
you hit enter it will show all available shares, printers will be a
folder you can open, open it, find the printer you shared, can right
click, then click CONNECT, it will load the driver and give you access
to it. Remember, you can't print to it UNTIL you authenticate with the
home computer from the laptop first.

You could make youself a batch file with all of this in it:

: THIS IS MY MAP BATCH FILE
:===========================
: delete anything mapped to drive letter X
net use X: /delete
: remap X to my home computer share
net use X: \\computername\share /user:myuser mypassword
:
: Put more maps here if needed

If you are running NTFS on the home computer you could map to the
\\computername\c$ share and have complete access to everything on the
drive, the same would be true if you have a second partition/drive as
\\computername\d$

I use this method with workgroup computers from my work laptop and when
my work laptop is in a workgroup, you can do the DOMAIN SHARES the same
way.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, when I ran the net use command as you instructed, I received
this error:

System error 53 has occurred.
The network path was not found.

 

[Leythos]

Lanwrench, thank you for your reply. I inadvertently replied to Leythos
instead of you earlier -- here's what I said.

Unfortunately, whenever I run the net use command from my XP laptop to map
to a share on one of my home computers, I receive the following error:

System error 53 has occurred.
The network path was not found.

Do you have file/printer sharing setup in the network properties of the
home computer?

Do you have the firewall enabled on the home computer? If so, if you are
behind a router, disable it.

If you have done the above, try \\computer_ip_address\share

A good way to test name resolution is to type: ping computername

If it doesn't come back with the IP then you try pinging the IP of the
computer, if that fails you have bigger problems

Both computers have to be in the same IP Network for this to work:

Make sure that the default gateway and subnet mask are the EXACT SAME on
both computers. Both computers should also be in the same IP network
(typically 192.168.0.X, or 192.168.1.X - X would be different for each
computer).

 

[Guest]

Leythos, thank you for your reply.

I have created an account with administrative rights on my XP home computer
which is identical (in name and password) to the domain account I use to log
in to my XP laptop.

Unfortunately, whenever I use the net use command from the XP laptop to map
a drive to a share on the XP home computer, I receive the following error
message:
System error 53 has occurred.
The network path was not found.

 

[Guest]

Lanwrench, thank you for your reply. I inadvertently replied to Leythos
instead of you earlier -- here's what I said.

Unfortunately, whenever I run the net use command from my XP laptop to map
to a share on one of my home computers, I receive the following error:

System error 53 has occurred.
The network path was not found.

 

[Eric Niewoehner]

You mentioned you were using wireless at home. Are you using SP2 and
using WEP on the wireless?

 

[XPUSER]

Searched google for "System error 53" "network path was not found"
Got many hits - here are a few:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=822345
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=840634
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBH/TIP3500/rh3533.htm
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBQ/tip8300/rh8372.htm
http://www.chicagotech.net/systemerrors.htm#System error 53 - The network path was not
found.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

"Workgroup is not accessible. You might not have permissions to use this
network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you
have access permissions. The network path was not found."

Ken,

you can use http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm to solve this
problem. When you fill in the form on that page, be sure to
check the checkbox that refers to exactly that error message.

Hans-Georg