Chapter 18: LAN Configuration

Overview

Windows XP Professional was developed by Microsoft to become the new standard for corporate desktop users. It is designed specifically to participate in networked environments and is well suited to networks of any size. In addition to providing strong levels of security required to participate on a network, Windows XP provides a complete set of network software, including protocols, clients, and services.

Windows XP Professional works well on small workgroup-based networks where a small number of autonomous computers are connected together. In this type of network, Windows XP Professional maintains its own security, policies, and user accounts, and users are expected to have user accounts established on every computer to which they may need to log in or connect. Windows XP Professional also works well on large enterprise domain-based networks where security policies, user accounts, and group policies are centrally managed by the active directory. This allows Windows XP Professional users to log in once and then access network resources without having to reauthenticate themselves.

Administrators need to understand the features of both workgroup and domain networks in order to be able to properly administer them. This chapter reviews Windows XP Professional's networking capabilities and demonstrates how to configure it to participate on both large and small networks.