Domain vs Workgroup

geezer

geezer

Executive Member
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
6,112
Reaction score
5,783
Location
Sasolburg
One of our managers wanted to connect his own personal computer onto our company network. He was told that it would not be possibe because his laptop has Windows XP Home on it, and you need XP Professional to join a domain. This made me think. I have never bothered to find out what exactly is a the difference between a domain and workgroup, and what do you need to set up a domain? a Brief explanation from the network buffs out there will be appreciated.
 
Workgroups = uses Peer to Peer networking.
Domains require a dedicated file server setup - PDC - primary domain controller

XP Home can connect to a Domain.
 
The main thing about Domains is Pass Thru Authentication.

On a Workgroup, your shared resouces and access rights are distributed between various servers. This means at ever resouce, you need to manually log in by typing your username / password, and the account needs to be managed seperatly at each server where a resource exist.

On a domain controller, all the resouces are still distributed between various servers, but the server will query the 'domain controller' automatically to retrieve authentication details. On a domain thus, you only log in once, and you can transparently access all the shared resources where you have access to, without the need to specifically log in to each one.

Domains are mostly used thus to centralise the management of resources and accounts...

XP Home can definately join domains.
 
XP Home cannot "join" a domain, in that it cannot authenticate against a domain. You cannot use the domain controller to verify the user details. XP Home requires that the user is loaded on the machine locally. However, the XP Home machine will still be able to browse open file shares, and connect to your proxy server, or your ERP server etc. However, if the share on your network has security restrictions, i.e, the Everyone account does not have full permissions, then it will not neccesarily work.

In order to browse domain file shares from XP Home, you need to set your Workgroup name to the same as the fully qualified domain name, for eg. my.domain, as in our case za.domain.com. Preferably create a user on the XP Home machine with details identical to that on the domain. Same username and same password. Then login. When browsing shares, it may ask for a username and password. Supply a fully qualified name "domain\username". and the password. This should allow you to browse. The reason you should add the domain user to the local machine is that some domains require that for the Everyone account, you still need to be a valid domain user. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.

Basically this should allow your boss onto your network, but he will have limited functionality.
 
graviti said:
XP Home cannot "join" a domain, in that it cannot authenticate against a domain. You cannot use the domain controller to verify the user details.
Click to expand...
That was his problem exactly. He needed to join the domain. He convinced the company to upgrade his XP Home to XP Pro. I am still however looking for a brief (layman’s) explanation of what is needed to set up a domain. For example, can this "domain server" be a XP Pro machine? If not, then what? I am asking this just as a matter of curiosity.
 
No, Windows XP cannot be used as a "domain server". A domain server is generally called a domain controller. It controls the domain. This is usually used within an organisation which is reasonably large. It supplys the ability to authenticate users to specific services, such as authentication to a SQL service. One of the nicest functionalities is groups. You can create a group, say "G1". You can then create a share that gives G1 full control on the share. Now you create another share. Again you give G1 full control. Now imagine a Workgroup environment. These shares would be created with Workgroup as either everyone has full access, or everyone has restricted access. Now your accountant has some very important info in an Excel file that he updates weekly, and the MD want's to be able to read it. Workgroup sharing, means if he shares it, everyone can see it. Even if it is only read only at the best. But with a domain, you can restrict everyone from seeing the document, except the MD and the accountant. This is best accomplished by adding these two people to a group, and giving the group access. This way, if they have 30 shares that both of them access, then if they decide to add a new person to have viewing priveleges, you merely add them to the group, as opposed to finding each share and changing it individually.

But basically in short. For a Windows Domain Controller, you need Windows Server 2000/2003. You can use Linux, but it does lack a few of the features, such as true ADS. Get hold of a company that sells Windows Server, and ask them to "sell" it too you, so you can see it's benefits, compared to a Workgroup setup
 
XP Home can't by default join a domain....but by adding a VBS Script it is possible
 
Would it be possible tell me where i can get this Script from ?
 
possible

it is possible to setup xp home on a domain, and even use xp as a "sort domain controller".

well, in laymans terms.....

first, xp home to domain :

domain server = myserver01.myadsl.local
setup a user : tester / testpwd

xp home machine = join workgroup : myadsl
setup new user in winxp with the following details : tester / testpwd

share something on the domain controller, and you'll be able to access the resources on the domain server / controller, CALLED : myserver01, ie : CMD - Run - \\myserver01 [ENTER] You will either get a login popup window, or go into the shares of the DC

ITS NOT JOINED to the DOMAIN, but it can ACCESS "some" of the domain resources, with the right privilages

Only problem, when you change winxp home password, you need to change the domain server's user acc password aswell, they have to be duplicates of each other.

Same goes for a windows xp pro server

Setup 5x user accounts on xp pro, which acts as a file server, turn of simple file sharing, and bobs yar uncle.

Same username and passwords as die workstations running xp pro / xp home.

NB : Windows XP Pro can only have 10 simultations connections to workstations.

any questions prvt msg me...
 
Last edited:
with SQL, enable TCP/IP and named pipes

add users to the SQL admin side, not NT Auth, and you'll be able to join it
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X