This is strictly a Windows domain/file sharing issue...

The situation:

I've got visiting teachers that bring in their Windows laptops to OMRF.
Most of the laptops are registered on school domains (outside
OMRF/OUHSC). The laptops belonging to our staff are registered on the
OMRF domain. Some of the teachers are logging into their laptops using
OMRF accounts, although their accounts have been disabled. They don't
want to create new user profiles (too much trouble locating disparate
files). All computers are running 2000 or XP.

What I need:

I need all laptops connected into the network and able to readily
access a Windows file share and access internet resources. There really
is no time to configure new domain accounts on each laptop. I want the
teachers to be able to walk in, plug in their laptops, and get to work.

What I've tried:

I tried setting up a share on the OMRF network giving everyone access,
but this doesn't work with computers that are registered on the domain
with disabled users. Also, not all of the computers seem to be able to
browse the network effectively (I just get a "computer not found" or
authorization error with no option to login). The most frustrating
thing is that each computer reacts a little differently to the attempt
to connect to a network resources.

I tried to set up a "internet file share" on a mini-lan (using one
computer to dish out internet sharing, or a router) and this has been a
little successful, but the performance of a "internet" share on XP
sucks. Some computers can upload only, while others can upload and
download (!?).

There has got to be a simpler solution to this!

How should I get all of the computers connected and able to connect to
the internet? DNS and WebDav on linux? Would the computers have to
register with the DNS server? And would the clients' performance
improve accessing the webdav share? Argghh... help!

quyen

J Quyen Arana
Information Technology Director
Oklahoma Science Project
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405.271.7683