Well, I recently upgraded my Sony Vaio laptop to XP pro. I set it up as a "workgroup" machine, even though I use a domain at work. Well, suprisingly, it worked great and just as I wanted. When at home, it just takes me right into the desktop where I can access my offline outlook, get to the internet, etc. When at work, after I would reach the desktop, it would pop up a login box allowing me to enter my username, domain & password info. (Note: the server at work runs SBS 4.5 w/exchange server/etc.) Then I could access all domain resources, run and access outlook, etc. So this was great. Well, this week I came into the office, connected my lan cable & fired up the laptop - but there is no login popup! When I go to outlook, it can't access my exchange server, nor can I access network resources (my network neighborhood). What happened? Is there a setting I screwed up somewhere? Someone here at work told me to "join the domain", but the last time I did that on my previous machine, I could no longer log into my same profile at home because it couldn't authenticate. I wouldn't mind doing it if I could still access the same profile at home, but I don't know how to make that work I guess. Then he thought I should try to make my WORKGROUP name and USER name/password match exactly the domain & user name/password on the domain here at work. So, I tried that & now it asks me for a password at the Startup screen - but I still can't access anything on the domain!!! Any thoughts on this would be great - the tech person at work is not a real tech guy and doesn't understand what to do either so I'm kind of on my own here... Thanks

When you login, do you indeed have the Domain listed in your login screen? Username Password Logon to: If there's no third box, check the Options and see if it's then listed. If it is, then use your Domain Login. If it's not, then you indeed did change from Domain login to Workgroup. You'll have to go back in locally with the local Admin account and re-add the computer back to the Domain. Then, login to the Domain. If you want everything to be the same when you are at work, and at home, then you need to cache your Domain login. The two profiles (work and home) will not be the same, unless you are indeed using a cached login. And...if you're using an Exchange server, then you will NOT have access to that server when you are at home. So, there are a few separate issues here... Post back and then I may be able to help you a little more, based on what your current setup is.

First, thanks for the response I appreciate it. Now, if I am understanding you correctly, I could (1) attach my computer to the domain, and then (2) "cache" the login, and that would allow me to access the same profile, regardless of where I am - on the plane, at home, in the office? Here are my questions: 1) If not at the office (and not connected to anything), would my Outlook then function as "off-line", allowing me to store messages & sync them when on the network? 2) I have been using a VPN connection to access the network from home over the web - Would that still function the same? 3) How do I "cache" the login? 4) After reading a few things, it has become apparent that the "popup" login box was occuring because I was trying to access a resource (in this case, on the domain at work) and XP determined that of course I needed to authenticate. But now, that popup stopped occuring - isn't that supposed to be a default action? So I got to wondering - is it possible that I somehow checked a "remember password" or something similar, and now it's trying to automatically login (maybe with the wrong info?). I do notice that a small window appears in the bottom bar as I access my desktop, but then disappears - as if something ran for a moment. It looks a lot like what appeared when the popup login box was working...??? THANKS again...

You can't get your network neighbourhood either - could it just be a bad network connection? Then the reason you don't get a popup is that the laptop isn't finding a network to log on to. Try a different cable, and check you have a green light on the network port on the laptop.

Well, that is certainly how it seems for most things, EXCEPT it does get assigned a proper IP and does have access to the internet - so the connection is there. Another strange thing is that since this happened, each time I reboot and look in my network places, there are fewer items listed. If I try to get to one, it says it can't access. I really don't mind attaching it to the domain if in fact I can still get to the same profile and still get to the internet when not in the office. On my previous laptop, I had two profiles, and yet the only way I could get onto the internet when outside the office was through the VPN!! I'm sure it was a configuration problem but I could never figure it out. That was a real bummer & I don't want to end up with that scenario again that's for sure... ;-) THANKS!

It might be that everytime you go to the office your domain thinks you are putting on a new computer rather than just re-attaching a laptop. There is a limit on how many computers a user can connect. (odd guess) There is a ton of stuff on the MS 2003 server site just on this situation. Might see that stuff and set your laptop up again. Might have to have access to active domain users to correct device and profile.