Switching between domain and workgroup - advice please...

Hi

I'm trying to help a friend get his work laptop to access his home PC
network.

He has a laptop running Win XP Pro which is setup to access his office
domain which works fine.

At home he has 1 PC running XP Home and 1 PC running Win2K (SP4).

When he brings the laptop home he can connect wirelessly to the router
(Linksys WAG54)
and get an internet connection and he can also print to the printer
connected to the XP Home PC.

The Win2K and the XP Home PC can share files but neither can ping the laptop
and vice versa.

He wants to be able to share files between all three PC's. But the only
thing he cant see from his laptop are the folders setup for sharing
on the other two PC's.

I wondered if this is because his laptop is setup for a domain and is not
part of the workgroup? Or is it because the laptop is connecting to the
router via wireless whereas the other two PC's are currently wired to the
router?

In short I'd like to know what steps to take to allow the laptop access to
the home workgroup - without messing up the settings for his office domain?
Is it easy to switch from a domain to a workgroup (and back again for when
the laptop is in his office)?

Thanks for any info.

Ian

Ian Roberts wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm trying to help a friend get his work laptop to access his home PC
> network.
>
> He has a laptop running Win XP Pro which is setup to access his office
> domain which works fine.
(snip)

Information from MVP Lanwench:
Note - 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>

Also see:
MS KB article about the Net Use command - http://tinyurl.com/3bpnj

Managing One Windows XP-based Laptop for the Office and Home by MVP
Charlie Russel
http://tinyurl.com/cpy9q

http://winhlp.com/wxdomainworkgroup.htm - MVP Hans-Georg Michna

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User