Client unable to add domain/user access rights to admin group

I have a windows 2003 standard server, just 4 users, all laptops running windows xp pro/SP2. Once the client has attache to the domain for the first time I normally logout and back onto the client machine as admin and go to admin tools/compute management/local users & groups/ and in the group administrators I add "domain users" to the administrators group. This then gives the user logged onto the server/domain full rights over the local "c:" driver files.

The problem I have with this client is that when you make the search for "domain" to add the domain/users group, the search doen't "see" the domain at all it only sees the local client policy so gives a "domain" not found message.

The client is attached to the domain and is working normally when logged on as the client. Mapped drives to the service are working fine, and as they are all laptop's, they have "briefcase" files synchronsed on there home folders on the server, again no problem here.

I feel it is some form of security service on the server providing the client with browse access to the domain, but I can't for the life of me pin point it.

many thanks for any guidance...... Cheers Malcolm

 

What happens if you key in the full info rather than using search?

For example, if your domain name is MyDomain then

MyDomain\domain users

Also - the way you are doing things gives every user admin rights to every PC. If that's the intention then it should certainly work. However, if you only want each user to have admin rights to his/her PC, maybe just add the one user rather than the group?

MyDomain\JoeSmith

 

It is the intention that each user is able to access all files on each laptop if they are authorised by the server.
I have tried entering the domain name longhand either for a single user ofr for the full domain/user and that is rejected as not being in the present locations available for search. looking at the locations available there is only the client machine available, and the location capability is greyed out so there is no movement up or down the domain, this is what leads me to think that the domain search provided by the server when the user logs in is not enabled for some reason. I think it may be that a service on the server is not started?

Malcolm

Subsequent to posting this, I discovered the problem to be a DNS Issue. The server was not acting as the prime DNS on the network, the Wireless router on the broadband was, so active directory was not seeing the correct user id's so was rejecting the requests to the domain, once I pointed the IP to the server and the server to the router, everything worked normally.

Thanks for your help

 

Thanks for the update. Glad you found the problem.