Ok this is a strange one. I have a laptop that I use on a corporate active directory domain. Over the weekend I was playing (or wanted to play) a lan game with friends. When I removed myself from the domain and joined a workgroup which I just created , the first thing I noticed strange was it prompted me for a username and a password? (note: my account is has local admin rights and I was creating this workgroup on the fly so I should not need authority to do so?) I gave the login prompt the local admin username and password of the machine, it then said "welcome to workgroup" please reboot. After I rebooted it would not accept my regular user account nor the admin account and does not show "local machine" or "workgroup" under options?? just username and password fields I now cannot login into my laptop with any accounts!! I am not even sure how I will retrieve data?? I was going to try and run setup and possibly a repair? If you have any ideas on this I would love to hear from you. Thanks

You'll probably have to get your IT people to rejoin you to the domain. But, in the mean time, try logging on this way.... username.domainname password

This is just a suggestion as to what might've happened. I might be wrong but I think that perhaps your network administrator or I.T. of the corporate network edited the registry of your laptop such that if someone stole your laptop and tried to make modifications to it (ie Workgroup instead of Domain) they would be locked out based on lack of credentials. Was the user account you used to make these changes a local administrator? or was it a domain user with local admin rights on that machine? The difference is if you took your laptop out of the domain then the domain user account will no longer have access. It just doesn't make sense if you do have the local account that is locked out. Unless that was done somehow in the local policy editor by the LAN administrator.

The local admin account is usually a different password than the domain account.When the OS is installed before joining a domain, a password is set for the local admin. When the PC joins the domain, the domain admins account can be used to logon.When you disjoin the domain and go to workgroup it uses the original password. Try using a blank password.If not the IT department will most likely have the original password saved or they will use a generic one for all the PC's they put an OS on.

guys I am the admin , and I also set this machine up , so there was no registry changes and no policies applied to this machine

It's not the password that's causing the problem- you can set the password to pretty much anything you want- it's the DOMAIN that is the issue. Here's how it works; The domain that Phancock normally logs on to is a network domain, let's call it 'NETWORK'. Under the Win 2000, the computer also sees itself as a little domain, let's call it 'LOCAL'. Although Phancock had a local profile on the computer he was still a member of the NETWORK domain. His account looked like this: NETWORK/Phancock [local] He had a local account with administrative priveleges but this account was basically just a passthrough to let him use the computer to log onto the network domain. A client computer can either be a member of a workgroup, or a member of a domain but it can't belong to both. By making the computer a member of a workgroup Phancock took it off the NETWORK removing his passthrough ability in the process. Now, he is basically trying to log on to a domain that does not exist. The only way he will be able to log onto the computer using his NETWORK/Phancock account again is if the computer is physically connected and then re-joined to the NETWORK domain. If he had a truly local account on the computer, (and he may have, but I don't think so) it would look like this: LOCAL/Phancock [local] He could have administrative priveleges on the LOCAL 'domain' (even if he did not have admin priveleges on the NETWORK) the password could be different or it could be identical, it doesn't matter, it's the profile that counts Anyway, if Phancock does not have an account on the LOCAL computer and he does not know the password for the LOCAL Admin account, which looks like this: LOCAL/Administrator [local] then he will not be able to log into the computer until he goes back into work and adds it back to the NETWORK domain. Phancock, you may have noticed that the log in screen no longer gives you the option to choose a domain, the only things you have available are the user and password fields because right now, there really IS no true domain to log on to. I like to look at Windows 2000 security like a nightclub; there's a bouncer at the door and you have to show your ID to even get into the club but once you're in, if you want to get into the VIP, not only do you have to have your ID, you have to KNOW somebody! I hope this helps & good luck! Cleo

Thanks for the little lesson on network Cleotechra , I am actually very aware of whats going on I am a MCSE. If it was a simple as that I would not even post it. I posted this because I want to know the strange things that went on like , why was I prompted for a username and password to join a workgroup. A workgroup does not have a domain controller to make such a request and I was not on the corporate Lan?? I have added machines to domains and workgroups at least a thousand times and have never seen that. I also entered the local admin credentials into this login which it accepted. It then rebooted and (I know about the little things like no domain) I then entered the credentials for local admin and it did not accept it. It liked them before and now no good? very strange. Like I said I am a engineer currently overseeing 3 active directory domains so I would hope I know what I am doing(: It was strange so I posted it