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I bought a machine from a friend that used to be on a network. He gave me his user name and password, however the network/business no longer exists so I can't log back in to fix current problems.

I need to set up the machine for a home network. Windows won't let me set this up for home networking. Any ideas?

I don't want to reinstall WinXP Pro and lose programs.

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migrated from serverfault.com Jan 19 '10 at 8:53

This question came from our site for system and network administrators.

2 Answers 2

It sounds like the machine is joined to a domain. Change the logon type to local (under "Log on to:" choose "Hostname (this computer)" and log on using the local administrator account.

If you do not know the local administrator account you will need to get a Windows XP password reset CD and run that.

Once you are into the computer as a local administrator you can "join" the computer back to a workgroup.

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Further for taspeotis' answer the way to do that is:

  1. Reset the password
  2. "System" con trol panel -> network -> "network ID", switch to using a workgroup
  3. Reboot
  4. Now join to the domain
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He doesn't want it back on the domain, just to the workgroup. –  ta.speot.is Jan 19 '10 at 7:00

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