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WorkPC on home network

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by haarsaker

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An actual problem with the growth of home networks is users wanting to plug their work PC/notebook into their home network to be able to access internet at home, connect to shared disk resources and shared printers on their home network.

Their work PC is normally a member of the office domain - at home there is normally no domain, just a workgroup-based network with a router distributing IP-adresses and also ADSL-access to internet.

OK - the internet access is not the problem - but accessto the shared resouces is:
The Work notebook is a member of the work domain - but in the home network which is workgroup based when you try to browse the network to find the resources - the workgroup is not found - and therefore no resources.

The Work PC is XP or W2K based - at home there is a mix of anything from Win3.11-W9x-WinMe-W2K-WXP.

I now have 3 users having this problem. They have access to internet through their home ADSL-based routers - but can't access shared printers - shared disk resources on the other home PCs.

And YES - All this assuming that I will allow them to connect their work PC to their home network (VirusSW and SWbased firewall are employed).

Anyone for a solution ?

14 replies

by gigelul

If they will change the home network settings (internal settings not relate to Internet access) to meet the same IP settings/class/netmask (static IP on notebooks) and workgroup name like your domain, they will can work on home network.

by gigelul

For Win2k/WinXP home computers they will need to add on this computers the "Notebook user" account in local users group. Of course some permissions settings for share resources.
All changes will be made on home network.

by haarsaker

Thanks - will try this.
To complicate this problem:
Today more and more families have two working people - each with the own work computer belonging to different work domains - then the above solution is not feasable ?

by d_v ant

Even if they cannot browse the network, they should still be able to connect to the shares from the Run box. They just need to type in "\\mycomputer\myshare" sans quotes and it should connect without changing their workgroup. As someone mentioned, if they are using 2000 or XP, they will need to set the permissions for the shares appropiately.

by pcstechnical

i believe from you question that you are only changing the TCP/IP properties to that of the home network or rather automatically from DHCP i would guess. This would give you internet access through your isp as this work on the protocol level of the network stack. However in order to view the home shares you need to rightclick my computer/properties and disjoin from youre work domain and join your home workgroup. You would need to reverse this process when you go back to work. You will also needa local account with admin rights to do this.
Hope this helps
Rob Hughes
support@pcstechnical.co.uk
www.pcstechnical.co.uk

by haarsaker

This is the problem right on the spot.

But I don't want to let my users have admin rights to perform the task og disjoining/joining domains/workgroups.

Florinel' first answer above (to have the user change his home network settings to match those of the work network) seems the best so far (haven't tested this yet though) - but this still leaves the problem of two work computers belonging to different domains wantig to connect to the same home network and access shared resources.
As for my own XP-Pro notebook / home network I partly solved the problem by first configuring the notebook as part of the work domain. Then connected to the home network and disjoined the work network an joined the home workgroup. When I now connect to the work network I don't log on to the network with my network user ID - I instead log on to the notebook with my local user ID. I can still somehow reach shared resources in the work domain - as I don't log on with my domain user name - I don't run the logon script's configuration tasks. I'm not quite sure why it works - but I guess it has somthing to to with the fact that the notebook was originally configured with my own work network user ID (which has admin right on the work domain).
But I still very much would like a better solution both for my own PC and those PCs of my other users with home networks ?

by plainbroke

My Laptop lets me configure each PCMCIA slot differntly. IE the top one is setup to connect to my home network using static IP address and the bottom one is setup DHCP for work, Using the same nic card. I do not see how you are going to get aroundthe workgroup issue with 2 different users from different work networks wanting to connect at home.. Other than using Netswitcher or something like it to setup so they can switch back and forth.. I would guess your users are a lot more technical savey than mine...

by gigelul

Make a batch file for this users.
They first connect at home network and then must run the batch.
The batch can contain:
-------------------
@echo off
net use h: /delete /y

echo **
echo ** Enter the password

@echo off
set /P something=

net use h:\\HomeComputerName\HomeShareName /U:WorkgroupName\UserName %something%
if errorlevel 1 goto wrong

net use \\HomeComputerName\HomePrinterShareName /U:WorkgroupName\UserName %something%
goto end

:wrong
echo **
echo **Bad Password

:end
echo **
pause
exit
------------------
With this batch the authentification at home network is OK (no matter the domain or workgroup name), but remains the IP settings problem.

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