Logon to Active Directory after the Desktop boots up

[dvannoy]

Is there a way to login to a domain after the desktop starts up. I need to be able to log into a 2003 domain but after the desktop startsup. all our desktops autologin with local admin rights.

any help would be appreciated

 

[PScottC]

Use TweakUI to set up your autologon.

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[dvannoy]

ok...I was looking at that..the autologin is not a problem. thats already setup now.. but how can I get the domain sign on prompt to appear at the desktop after the auto login?

 

[PScottC]

Huh? You just bypassed the logon prompt by setting up the auto-login. What do you mean?

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[dvannoy]

in the registry...autologon is set to 1. which the system by passes the startup screen..thats not my problem. I need to log into a domain after the system boots to the desktop.

 

[PScottC]

You should be logging onto the domain in your auto logon. These machines are on the domain, right? One of the registry entries is DefaultDomainName. If it's not there, you can add it.

You should have 4 registry entries:

DefaultDomainName
DefaultUserName
AutoAdminLogon
DefaultPassword


PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[dvannoy]

these systems will be attached to the domain. the problem is, I am in a mixed server environment with Novell. all client desktops auto login with local admin rights for support reasons. i need a way for some of these users to sign into the domain when they need to. sort of like the novell client. is there anyway to prompt the domain signin screen by clicking an icon or running script or something?

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

I hope I have this right, currently auto logon is enabled. You would like to bypass the auto-login to allow a different account to log in. When the OS is up, click on the start button -> Shutdown -> Choose Log off and click OK. Make sure you are holing down the SHIFT key during the log off, you will be prompted to supply the user name and password of the account you wish to log on with...

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

... You can then change to domain you wish to log into. That would be the only way I could think of doing what you require.

 

[compuveg]

I think you could write a batch file that would do a 'net logon' command to get the results you want.

If I wasn't on a linux box right now I'd check the results of 'net help' from the command line and tell you the exact parameters.

 

[FredNoB]

The most basic option you could try is from the run command. type in the server name eg \\servername ( or the domain) and hit return - this should prompt you with a logon window allowing you to logon. You could then automate this process through a batch file.

 

[dvannoy]

FredNoB,

that works..I'll just have to live with it opening up all the shares after that command runs.

Thanks

 

[dvannoy]

one other question..if i use \\servername to get prompted for the login, then the user logs in, would login scripts assigned in AD still be able to run? I am going to create vbscripts for my login scripts.

 

[compuveg]

I was able to logon to the domain's 'netlogon' share using the following DOS command...

net usr \\domaincontroller\netlogon /user:dotteddomainname.com\username password

Of course, where 'domain cntroller' is our domain's main controller. Where dotteddomainname.com is our organization's dotted domain name, thesystem.com for example. Where username and password are the username and password.

Needless to say, it is highly recommended that you not have passwords stored in plaintext files. So if you go with a parameter-less batch file you will want to make sure that batch file is in a secure location.

Regarding login scripts and whether or not they will execute, I can't tell you. We're transitioning slowly from netware to Win2k3, and still have the login scripts executed by Netware. However, the '/home' switch might be of assistance. Just try it and see if the script does execute.

I still don't understand why the PCs are auto-logged in, if they need local admin rights, just setup each machine with the domain user account in the local admins group. This is better than making 'domain users' local admins, as that would make anyone be able to admin anyone else's machine.