workgroup or domain

[dave]

why do you have to choose to be in a workgroup or domain?
Why cant you be in both? In win98 you choose to log onto
a certain domain and you put what workgroup you are in as
well. I am confused what to do or what advantages are to
each?

[rifleman]

In article >,
says...
> why do you have to choose to be in a workgroup or domain?
> Why cant you be in both? In win98 you choose to log onto
> a certain domain and you put what workgroup you are in as
> well. I am confused what to do or what advantages are to
> each?
>
A domain holds all the security information centrally on a Domain
Controller, so that in theory, any user can log in from any machine. A
workgroup (and if you have more than 10 machines you start to get
problems as XP Pro only allows 10 connections I think....) has all the
security information locally, so that each user has to have a log-in on
each machine. I think, if you log in to a domain, and then connect to a
workgroup, there is no need for the workgroup to be set up on the domain
machine. As long as there is a user with the same rights and password
set up on the other machines.
HTH

--
(I may be wrong...I usually am....)
Google is your Friend
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www.gbpcomputing.co.uk

[Chris Jackson \(MVP\)]

Beyond what rifleman said, here are some additional notes:

When you join a domain, you are under the jurisdiction of that domain. They
can set up rules and policies that you must follow as a member of that
domain. Your authentication is handled centrally, so talking with other
machines becomes much easier, as does accessing resources that have limited
access.

You can also join a workgroup and authenticate to a domain - you do this by
entering the credentials in the Manage Network Passwords section of the User
Manager. This is the equivalent of what you saw in Win98 - you weren't
actually joining a domain, you were just authenticating to it.

Typically, if you have a domain, you want to join it. In many cases, you
have to because the company dictates it. The point of the domain is to be
joined. A workgroup is more of a home user thing, where you typically don't
have a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 server running as a domain controller.
(Except in mine, of course, but I am far from the norm.)

--
Chris Jackson
Software Engineer
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
--
"dave" > wrote in message
...
> why do you have to choose to be in a workgroup or domain?
> Why cant you be in both? In win98 you choose to log onto
> a certain domain and you put what workgroup you are in as
> well. I am confused what to do or what advantages are to
> each?

[rifleman]

In article >,
says...
> Beyond what rifleman said, here are some additional notes:
>
> When you join a domain, you are under the jurisdiction of that domain. They
> can set up rules and policies that you must follow as a member of that
> domain. Your authentication is handled centrally, so talking with other
> machines becomes much easier, as does accessing resources that have limited
> access.
>
> You can also join a workgroup and authenticate to a domain - you do this by
> entering the credentials in the Manage Network Passwords section of the User
> Manager. This is the equivalent of what you saw in Win98 - you weren't
> actually joining a domain, you were just authenticating to it.
>
> Typically, if you have a domain, you want to join it. In many cases, you
> have to because the company dictates it. The point of the domain is to be
> joined. A workgroup is more of a home user thing, where you typically don't
> have a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 server running as a domain controller.
> (Except in mine, of course, but I am far from the norm.)
>
> --
> Chris Jackson
> Software Engineer
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows XP Associate Expert
>
Thanks for the elaboration - I'm only a third through doing Exam 70-210!
--
(I may be wrong...I usually am....)
Google is your Friend
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam:
www.gbpcomputing.co.uk