Cannot join office domain

Hello all,

I'm not really much of a systems admin...more of a code, but you guys have been a great help before. I'm having difficulties adding one user to my office domain. He has a laptop running Windows XP Professional and he's trying to connect to a Windows 2003 Server domain with Small Biz Server 2003. I have tried logging in using his credentials on some of the other pc's in the office and have no problem since they're already joined on the domain. His laptop is already configured for our old domain so I'm really changing the domain on his machine.

The first thing I tried was Windows' "Network Identification Wizard". I typed in his username, password, and the domain and got the following error: "The specified server cannot perform the requested operation".

Then I tried clicking on 'Change' (to rename the computer or join a domain) under System Properties, where the Wizard button is also. I type in his computer name and the domain name and the same error occurs in a different looking MessageBox, with this text before the error: "The following error occurred attempting to join the domain "THEDOMAIN".

Any ideas? If any other information is needed to figure out what's going on, please let me know. Thanks in advance!

You have to specify a domain administrator username & password to join the computer to the domain, if you didn't.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying Doug. Do you mean I need to make the laptop user a domain admin on the server!? That doesn't sound write so I believe I've misunderstood.

If you mean I need to enter a domain username/password when I JOIN the computer to the domain, when do I do this? I'm not sure I've seen the screen that asks for a domain admin username/pass. I'll try it again and see if it asks for one. I know I added myself easily to the domain, but I'm a domain admin.

Thanks,

Panuvin

when you join a domain from XP, during the process you should be prompted for a "enter a username/password that has permissions on the domain" or something to that effect. You have to provide such an admin password to create a computer account in the domain directory. If you're not seeing such a prompt review the steps you're following to join a domain. I usually right-click my computer, properties, network identification and follow the steps from there (which sounds like what you've already done).

Sorry forn jumping on your thread panuvin but I am having a similar problem. After joining my work domain I now don't have admin rights on my laptop.

I tried changing the Admin password through Dos, but that won't work. And the other account (for when I am home) can't see my work account to actually give it admin rights.

Is it safe enough to go from Domain to Workstation and then add it again? Or will that just create further problems?

You'll be using a different profile between a domain user logon and a local computer user logon which can cause some programs to not work properly in one or the other profile.

You need to add your domain user account to the local computer administrators group so your domain account becomes a local computer admin. To do this log on the laptop as an administrator user (local is fine), then in computer management, local users & groups, add your domain user account as a member of the local administrators group.

I tried that before Doug and it wasn't actually seeing my Domain account in the users list. Or is that normal? If it is normal how do I then add the new domain account? Does it go off the name of the computer?

On my XP Pro that's set up as a domain member computer, when manipulating users & groups I have the choice of adding users from the local computer user database or the domain user database, this is on an old NT4 domain not AD but on other sites the same thing is true. If your computer is a workgroup computer, you may be able to manually add a domain user to a group by using <domain>\<username> syntax.