You're saying I can't login to the domain on the laptop and then search for the share? I have to login to the *(this computer)* option to do this?
Because I think I remember I couldn't login to *(this computer)* for some reason (it's not my laptop). only logging into the domain worked.
Im assuming you want to take a notebook home to access your home network and the client shares on that network...
If the laptop is setup for DOMAIN, and there is no primary domain server, there's no way you can login to that machine because authentication is coming from a server (the domain controller).
But logging into "this computer" will bypass the domain and use your notebook as a regular workstation (as if you were part of just a workgroup).
I can login to my laptop with the "Log on to:" value set to the DOMAIN when its not connected to anything.
Authentication is not coming from a server in this case, unless by some magical phenomenon.
That's interesting I was lead to believe that usually for a DOMAIN, the only way to access the DOMAIN's resources would be resolved through a domain controller (since local authentication would make no sense at that point), so I thought most would setup a domain with server authentication.
Well, regardless, if you hook that notebook to the network at home, you'll probably see errors concerning not able to connect to DOMAIN for certain things, BUT you can still browse a local workgroup, and access machine shares.
FYI
Directly accessing by IP bypasses all that workgroup nonsense. Workgroups can cause some trouble in domains, you might not see workgroups because some administrators disable that service that announces workgroup and client information because it kills a domain (especially 98 clients, I've had one bring down a server and domain every 2 hours) (LAN master me thinks its called).
Which also reminds me, you might have to reconfigure the notebook with the correct subnet static IP or hopefully it fetches an IP from your router (assuming you have one)
the notebook gets a dynamic ip from DHCP of the router.
that all works cool, its just the windows-specific (share) stuff I was having trouble with.
yeah, I'm gonna try the ip way. I wasn't aware you could access share's by ip. so that's cool.
you can also configure the UNC computer name to an IP manually by using the LMHOSTS file (sits next to the HOSTS file). that will let you type in a computer name without it actually having refreshed all the windows networking names yet
yeah, the domain login is cached locally so you can login when not connected to the domain.