Question

How to use command-line commands to log in a domain?

Asked by: Castlewood

I have some users in Sales department visiting several different sister companies in our group. Each sister company has their own domain. When they visit, they want to use the local resources such as printers, scanners, network drivers, etc. I want to know if there is a way of loging to a domain by using command-line commands so I can plug them in the login script. With this, they will be able to login to the local domain whichever company they visit.
Thanks.

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-06-30 at 08:50:40ID24533660
Tags

script

,

login domain

Topics

MS DOS

,

Windows Batch Scripting

,

VB Script

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
8

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Resticing Domain Logons in Departments
    I currently have a network with two Win2K Servers, set up for to host the domain called 'network' for around 100 XP Pro Workstations. Within the company I Have 6 Departments (Accounts, Graphics, Technical etc..) with 10-25 PC's in each. Currently all users have their own user...
  2. Security rights in the IT Department
    Dear Experts, I am curious if anyone has dealt with this problem. I have a small IT department of 3 people including myself. I do most of the backend "nitty gritty" but the other two individuals who are helpdesk (Hardware) and a software support specialist positi...
  3. XP loging into SBS2003
    I have a client that has SBS 2003 installed. I have one user that seems to not be able to log in to the domain. SBS has been installed for about a year now and he was working just fine. The symptom is - it's like when you logon for the first time and it creates a profile - bu...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: brasslanPosted on 2009-06-30 at 11:18:11ID: 24747918

net use t: \\server\common /user:chris 12345

That will map the local T: drive to the common share on the server using the username chris and password 12345

You can also change the username to the format "domain\user"  eg microsoft\bill will use the username bill on the Windows domain microsoft.

If you just simply want to login to a server, but not map a drive, then just leave out the drive letter and that will process the initial login.

 

by: QlemoPosted on 2009-06-30 at 11:37:56ID: 24748105

I don't think the above mentioned approach will suffice, as you need to use the same server name and at least one common share in all domains, and it does not allow for usage of domain resources, only for that single server.

If you make sure the local account is replicated into all domains (including the same password), you shouldn't have any problems browsing the local domain and using its resources. The laptop users will stay local, but whenever they access the domain, they will do with the domain account with same name.

It could be necessary to have the laptop be part of the local domain - that would be difficult, as you can only have ONE domain membership.

(I assumed those users are accessing domain resources with their own laptop on travelling.)

 

by: CastlewoodPosted on 2009-06-30 at 14:04:42ID: 24749597

Qlemo, the domains are not under the same tree so there is no replication between. You are correct that those users are accessing domain resources with their own laptop on travelling. When they turn power on and login to their own laptops it is their "home" domain they log into using the user's profile. I think the question is more like: can they log in to multiple domains? If yes, how and what commands to use in user's login script?  

We currently use "net use". It seems cumbersome since there are so many resources to share. If they can log into the local domain by a command, it will be really awesome.

Can Net Use be used to share for an entire domain's resources, instead of just per server? If not, Net Use is not sufficient, since it is the command we currently use.

 

by: QlemoPosted on 2009-06-30 at 14:15:23ID: 24749694

Net use can't do that. It authorizes against a single server only, not the domain.

With "replication" I ment a manual way of duplicating related accounts to all domains. Which makes only sense if you have no account changes (including passwords), or a connection between all domains (at least at a single point of access).

You cannot be member of more than one domain at any time. You can change the logon domain, but I do not know (as I never tried) if that is really feasible with changing domains. The reg key for login domain is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultDomain
You can try to change that and if it would work. The laptop will have to be member of the domain, I reckon. This is something you have to do once for each laptop in each domain.

 

by: brasslanPosted on 2009-06-30 at 14:32:44ID: 24749841

I agree with Qlemo that you can only join one domain.  And since these domains are separate and not under the same tree, there is no way to log in to multiple domains.

If I had this problem, I would have setup a more complicated login script that would detect which network I'm on, then run the appropriate login commands to login to the individual servers that had the needed network resources.

But I didn't know that you could replicate local user accounts across a domain like Qlemo suggested.  If that isn't too hard, then it might prove to be a better solution.

 

by: brasslanPosted on 2009-06-30 at 14:37:40ID: 24749883

Oops, I was really slow in posting my last post and didn't see Qlemo's last note...

You can't change your registry to login to another domain.  You need more than a user account to login from a windows computer, you also need a computer account listed in the active directory on the domain as well.  As you know, after deleting a computer from Active Directory Users and Computers, no one can login to the domain from that PC anymore.

 

by: CastlewoodPosted on 2009-06-30 at 15:53:02ID: 24750358

Wait, does a computer need to join the domain before the user using this computer can login to this domain ??

 

by: QlemoPosted on 2009-07-01 at 03:08:33ID: 24752814

Only on a member computer you can login in using the domain account. However, if the domain account and the local account are the same (and using the same password), it should work, but it could also be necessary to login on each server providing the domain user.

We use that kind of login on most workstations (local login, domain login data = local login data), and for access between the workstations you have to give explicit domain login (sometimes).

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...