Windows XP Pro The Missing Manual [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 19. Introducing Network Domains

As you may remember from Chapter 2, Windows XP Pro was designed to thrive on two very different kinds of network worlds: the workgroup (an informal, home or small-office network) and the domain (a hard-core, security-conscious corporate network of dozens or thousands of PCs). Depending on which kind of network your PC belongs to, the procedures and even dialog boxes you experience are quite a bit different.

Chapter 18 guides you through the process of setting up a workgroup network, but no single chapter could describe setting up a corporate domain. That's a job for Super Geek, otherwise known as the network administratorsomebody who has studied the complexities of corporate networking for years.

This chapter is designed to help you learn to use a corporate domain. If your PC is connected to a workgroup network or no network at all, on the other hand, feel free to use these pages as scratch paper.

domain refers to a group of Windows computers on the same network. It's not the same as an Internet domain, which you may occasionally see mentioned. An Internet domain is still a group of computers, but they don't have to be connected to the same network, and they don't have to be running Windows. In addition, the domain name (like http://amazon.com) must be registered to ensure that there's no duplication on the Internet. Because Windows domains are private, they can be named any way the administrator chooses.