Work laptop connecting to network at home

[nrhan]

Hi --

Recently at work, I was issued a Thinkpad, running Windows 2000. I am
assigned a user name (roaming user with admin rights) with a domain.

Her's the problem. When I bring the laptop home and connect it
wirelessly to my home network (cable modem + Netgear wireless router),
I cannot make it access shared resources on the network, which are two
Win2K machines and a network hard drive. Under "My Network Places ->
Entire Network", only my machine's domain name shows up, and not the
workgroup name I assigned to other machines on my home network.

I have turned off the firewall on my work machine. Other machines are
certainly ping-able, but they simply do not show up in "My Network" at
all. I tried mapping them by typing in their addresses directly, but no
use.

I am thinking maybe it's because my work laptop is configured to be
used as a "domain" machine, while my home network is configured for
"workgroup".

Is there any way to get around this problem? Help will be much
appreciated.

best, Rae

 

[Robert L [MS-MVP]]

You should be able to access the Home computer even you have domain setup on your laptop. Since you can ping but not access, I am assuming this is permission issue. To confirm it, use net view \\remoteIP. If you receive system error 5, this is permission issue. then you need to create the same username and password on the remote computers. post back with the result.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
Hi --

Recently at work, I was issued a Thinkpad, running Windows 2000. I am
assigned a user name (roaming user with admin rights) with a domain.

Her's the problem. When I bring the laptop home and connect it
wirelessly to my home network (cable modem + Netgear wireless router),
I cannot make it access shared resources on the network, which are two
Win2K machines and a network hard drive. Under "My Network Places ->
Entire Network", only my machine's domain name shows up, and not the
workgroup name I assigned to other machines on my home network.

I have turned off the firewall on my work machine. Other machines are
certainly ping-able, but they simply do not show up in "My Network" at
all. I tried mapping them by typing in their addresses directly, but no
use.

I am thinking maybe it's because my work laptop is configured to be
used as a "domain" machine, while my home network is configured for
"workgroup".

Is there any way to get around this problem? Help will be much
appreciated.

best, Rae

 

[nrhan]

Bob,

Thanks for the tip. I followed your advice and set up my
network-attached hard drive with the same userID/password as my work
laptop. I had mixed success:

mapping "\\harddrive\shared" to "M:" using command "Map Network
Drive":
-- initially fails with error message:
"There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon
request."
-- success only after clicking on "connect using different user name"
and supplying
the userID/password (same as my laptop's and hard drive's!!)

Judging from the error message, I am guessing that by default the
authentification process replicates the usual "domain server logon"
process, which the network hard drive cannot handle. OTOH, by
explicitly instructing the mapping process to use different user name,
one is forcing the "peer-to-peer" authentification mode of the
"Workgroup" LAN setting. Is this interpretation more or less correct?

This method works, but the problem is that the drive mapping does not
survive reboot. During login, error windows pop up saying that mapping
has failed. I suppose "connect using different user name" setting does
not get saved along with "Reconnect at logon" option.

Two questions:
- Is there any way to keep the drive mapping across logons/reboots?
Hate having to manually map the drive everytime...
- If that's impossible given current setup (machine is configured with
a domain username, and home network uses workgroup setting), is it at
least possible to write a batch script that I can execute handily?

Thanks again,
Rae

 

[nrhan]

Think I found a solution for question 2. A .bat file containing line:

net use k: \\harddrive\shared passwd /user:userID /persistent:no

Turns out the userID/password on the network hard drive doesn't have to
be the same as the work laptop's.

thanks,
Rae

 

[Robert L [MS-MVP]]

thank you for the feedback.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
Think I found a solution for question 2. A .bat file containing line:

net use k: \\harddrive\shared passwd /user:userID /persistent:no

Turns out the userID/password on the network hard drive doesn't have to
be the same as the work laptop's.

thanks,
Rae