Joining a Workstation to the Active Directory

You must log in as a user with administrative privileges to properly perform this task. It is strongly recommended that you have the password for the built-in administrator account before beginning.

If you are part of a department that has its own Active Directory Organization Unit (hereafter refered to as OU), have your department's OU administrator create a computer account prior to joining the domain. Your computer name must match the computer account name that your OU administrator creates for your computer.

Using a domain account that is a member of your OU Admin group, launch "Active Directory Users and Computers" and perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to your OU.
2. Right-click the OU.
3. Click on New.
4. Click Computer.
5. Enter the NetBIOS name of the worksation you want join to the domain in the "Computer name:" field.
6. Click Next.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.
9. Allow about 15 minutes for changes to replicate to all domain controllers.

The worksation's NetBIOS name must be the same as the machine account just created in the above steps prior to doing the following steps.

If you are joining a Windows XP workstation:

1. Log on to the workstation with the local administrator account.
2. Click Start.
3. Right-click My Computer.
4. Select Properties.
5. Select the Computer Name tab.
6. Click Change...
7. Select the Domain radio button.
8. Enter:
   uark.edu
   in the Domain: field, and click OK.
9. Enter the username for a domain account that is a member of your OU Admins group in the form: username@uark.edu
10. Enter the password, and click OK.
11. When you get the "Welcome to the uark.edu domain." message, click OK.
12. Click OK to the restart message and in the System Properties dialog box and click Yes to restart the workstation.
13. When the computer restarts, log on with the local adminstrator account.
14. Add the appropriate domain users to the appropriate local groups (according to your need).

If you are joining a Windows Vista workstation:

1. Log on to the workstation with the local administrator account.
2. Click the Start button.
3. Right-click Computer.
4. Under the Computer Name, domain... sections, click on Change Settings.
5. Click Change...
6. Select the Domain radio button.
7. Enter: uark.edu
   in the Domain: field.
8. Click OK.
9. Enter the username for a domain account that is a member of your OU Admins group in the form: username@uark.edu.
10. Enter the password and click OK.
11. When you get the "Welcome to the uark.edu domain." message, click OK.
12. Click OK to the restart message and in the System Properties dialog box and click Yes to restart the workstation.
13. When the computer restarts, log on with the local adminstrator account.
14. Add the appropriate domain users to the appropriate local groups (according to your need).