Checklist for clients

Summary:

• Is our Windows workstation on the domain?
• Are we logged onto the domain?

Is our Windows workstation on the domain?

We can confirm if our Windows workstation is on the domain by going to Start > Settings > Control Panel and opening the "System Properties" window. If you have Windows XP in classic mode, then you should see an icon labeled "System". Otherwise, you will have to go into Performance and Maintenance to see the icon.

The "System Properties" window will tell us two things:

• The "Full computer name" (FQDN)
• The "Domain" name

How these two names appear in this window is important. Most developers do not reference computers by their FQDN. For example, we sometimes use the ping command to help us determine if a host is up or down. But most of us type in prompt>ping hercules instead of prompt>ping hercules.athena.local because it's easier.

Also, notice that in this example the domain name is "athena.local". Yet when we login into our workstations we select the "ATHENA" domain from the drop-down (backwards compatibility with Net BIOS). If you have ever been prompted for a username and password, you probably typed-in athena\dfelix or just dfelix instead of athena.local\dfelix as your username.

Are we logged onto the domain?

You may not have even realized it but you probably do this every morning. Log-off your workstation now and log back in. This time pay attention to the login screen.

Click the "Options > >" button to expand.

Some organizations have multiple domains running. Hence, this drop-down may have more than a couple of options. Just be sure you do NOT login locally by selecting the one with the parenthetical expression "(this computer)" option. Select "ATHENA" instead.