Newbie: Windows XP Machines Network Logon Question

[Mark]

Hi All, I'm hoping someone could help me with a networking question.

Currently we have approximately 30 - 40 XP machines, 1 SBS2000 server,
and approximately 8 Win98 machines running on the network. The users
do not log on to a domain as such, so when users logon, they logon to
the server. Currently the XP machines only allow logons for users
created locally on that machine. This means that if the user wants to
have a network password, they must have a matching password in XP
users passwords. Now this gets tricky when you want to implement a
maximum password duration on the server. What I would like to do is
allow logons based on the users' network password and for XP not to
store local passwords. However if the neetwork is down I would still
like to be able to access the machine by some method (how I dont
know??). Also, as each user users the same machine I would like to try
and avoid using roaming user profiles.

Not sure how much sense this makes, but I would like some advice on
the best method to provide a secure and efficient method of running XP
machines on a network.

Thanks for any help recieved.

[Ron Lowe]

"Mark" > wrote in message
om...
> Hi All, I'm hoping someone could help me with a networking question.
>
> Currently we have approximately 30 - 40 XP machines, 1 SBS2000 server,
> and approximately 8 Win98 machines running on the network. The users
> do not log on to a domain as such, so when users logon, they logon to
> the server. Currently the XP machines only allow logons for users
> created locally on that machine. This means that if the user wants to
> have a network password, they must have a matching password in XP
> users passwords. Now this gets tricky when you want to implement a
> maximum password duration on the server. What I would like to do is
> allow logons based on the users' network password and for XP not to
> store local passwords. However if the neetwork is down I would still
> like to be able to access the machine by some method (how I dont
> know??). Also, as each user users the same machine I would like to try
> and avoid using roaming user profiles.
>
> Not sure how much sense this makes, but I would like some advice on
> the best method to provide a secure and efficient method of running XP
> machines on a network.
>
> Thanks for any help recieved.


I'd join the machines to the domain, and use Domain user accounts all round.

Managing 30-40 machines with local machine accounts sounds like a nightmare.

When the domain controller is off-line or unreachable, XP will allow users
to
log on using their domain credentials due to cached credentials.


--
Best Regards,
Ron Lowe
MS-MVP Windows Networking

[Mark]

Thanks Ron, definately think that will be the route I will be taking.

Cheers