user accounts on xp client in windows domain network

Why ,or is it necessary to have a network domain user account setup on an
xp/2000 client PC? On our Server 2003 network, any user can log on to a
client with a valid network domain user account even if that user account has
not been set-up on that client.

Paul@SPC wrote:

Why ,or is it necessary to have a network domain user account setup on an
xp/2000 client PC? On our Server 2003 network, any user can log on to a
client with a valid network domain user account even if that user account
has not been set-up on that client.

I'm a little confused by your post. You don't set up domain user accounts on
the workstations. You set them up on the server. You join a workstation to
the domain by logging in as local Administrator. Unless you've set it up to
restrict users to certain computers (not done by default), then of course
you can log onto a workstation using any domain user credentials. The
workstation is getting the account information from the server, not
locally.

Are you just looking for information or do you have a problem you'd like to
solve? If the latter, please tell us your end goal so you can get the
focused help you want.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

=?Utf-8?B?UGF1bEBTUEM=?= wrote
in :

Why ,or is it necessary to have a network domain user account
setup on an xp/2000 client PC? On our Server 2003 network, any
user can log on to a client with a valid network domain user
account even if that user account has not been set-up on that
client.

I assume that you ask why it is necessary to have a local user
account in a domain environment?

Technically, it is not necessary. But it might be good to have if
you have a laptop that you remove from the domain to take home or to
travel with. As long as you have recently logged on to that machine
before removing it from the domain it will retain the cached
credentials so that you can log onto it on the road. But should you
accidentally disjoin your machine from the domain or do something to
erase the cached credentials, you might find yourself locked out of
your own machine while away from the domain. To guard against this
eventuality, I usually create a local user account on the machine so
that I can bail myself out should something like that happen.

Where I work, it has happened where someone will grab a laptop from
the pool, leave on travel, and not try to log into it until they are
on the airplane and away from the domain. They then find that there
are no cached credentials to log into the laptap with and they might
as well have left without a laptop.

HTH,
John