Authenticating in ad hoc mode with cached credentials

[LLChrisB]

I currently have 5 laptop users -- the laptops are part of our domain. The laptops have builtin wireless, so when the users are on the road, we'd like them to be able to form a small ad hoc network for file-sharing purposes.

Since the laptops are part of the domain (and not a workgroup), when the users logon to their laptops on the road, they are using their cached credentials. As such, when trying to connect to another laptop wirelessly, they receive the message "There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request" -- the laptop is trying to authenticate to the DC previously used when connected to the network.

Is there anyway for two laptops to authenticate to eachother with cached credentials?

The only workaround I see is to create a local user account and password on each laptop. I'd like to avoid this, because this means that users have two profiles and two logins to worry about.

Any other suggestions that I might be missing?

Thanks
Chris

[XeoNoX]

you got it right on the dot, that is just about the only way to do it.

[daniel_hurt]

Hello. Although this solution still requires local accounts you may not need to have them log on locally. I don't have the resources to test this on laptops with cached credentials, but in the process of upgrading the systems here at work from workgroup to domain I've found this to work on the desktops.

Create local accounts with the same username and password that the users would use to log into the network on all the laptops. Even though they don't have the server to validate against the local computers should recognize the account names and pair up the permissions without missing a beat. In my office here we were able to promote a server to DC and by keeping the local login accounts the same as the domain accounts none of our users had trouble accessing resources on the domain while they were still in their own workgroup or vice versa after being added to the domain accessing resources on systems that were not added yet.

The only thing you would have to watch for is file sharing and NTFS file permissions being correctly assigned on the laptops. Such as having all the shared resources NTFS permissions given to Domain Users and Local Users groups and make sure the proper accounts are assigned to those groups.

I hope this works for you, I hate playing around with multiple profiles myself.