WinXP Pro and Adding Users to connect to Domain

[ray]

I am helping my boss swap computers with one of our managers here. Since he hasn't explained our network setup to me, i have no clue if 1) i'm doing something utterly wrong or 2) there is something that needs to be done server side for this to work.

The computer i have to reconfigure is running Windows XP. I am trying to add the users profile onto the computer from the Adminstrative login so that the lady can log onto our domain and use microsoft exchange, our accounting program etc etc. I tried just logging in as her from the get go, but it said her profile could not be found, hence why i thought that her profile needed to be set up locally on the machine.

When I try to add the user to our domain I keep receiving the error message that says the computer and the domain controller cannot connect. That isn't the exact error message, but i have tried just about everything to get this to work. I tried adding the user both from Computer Management and from the Control Panels icon. Am i perhaps creating the profile incorrectly? I've been entering the user's login ID and the domain is Great or Great.com. I guess both should work. I click the OK screen and it asks me to confirm. I click OK again, and that is when i get the error message.

Anybody have any idea what i'm doing wrong?

[Joshua]

You need to create the user account on the server, or if you have the Active Directory utilities installed, you can do it from Active Directory users and computers.

By creating the user account in control panel, all you are doing is giving her a local account on the PC that won't give her any rights on the domain.

Make sure the machine has a valid IP address and that your WINS and DNS server settings are set up for your WINS and DNS servers. You may not have WINS if you are in a Win2k server only environment.

The error about the workstation not seeing the Domain Controller is usually caused by 1) wrong IP setup 2) wrong/no DNS settings.

Give it a try.

[ray]

figured it out! I had to switch the computer from the domain to a regular workgroup. then, after i rebooted, i could set up the account within the domain. Rebooted again, then i was able to login.

Thanks though snotrocket!

[Joshua]

Always a pleasure. :)

Sounds to me like you pulled your machine out of the Domain, created a local account and logged into the local machine.

Is that what you were going for?

I thought you wanted to create a Domain account for the user and log onto the Domain (which would require the machine to be a member of the Domain).

Either way... :)

[ray]

yeah, i was trying to add the user profile to logon to the domain. i was doing all of this from the adminstrator account, but since there was already an exisiting "account" on the domain server for this user, it wouldn't let me. so i had to take the machine off the domain and then put it back in. Weird stuff, but i did learn something :)