Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

Maintaining Your System Configuration

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Maintaining Your System Configuration

As part of routine maintenance, you should periodically review your computer’s core

configuration. You control many of your computer’s core configuration properties

through the System Properties dialog box. You use the System Properties dialog box

to manage settings for your computer’s network identity, environment variables, user

profiles, and much more. The System Properties dialog box has five tabs:

• Computer Name

• Hardware

• Advanced

• System Protection

• Remote

The sections that follow discuss how to use the related options to configure the com-

puter name, view hardware settings, set advanced options, and manage remote

access. Chapter 21 covers how to configure system protection options.

Configuring the Computer Name

Whenever you access resources on another computer, you do so using the com-

puter’s name. Generally, when computers are in the same domain or workgroup,

you’ll have an easier time accessing and working with them. When your computer is

a member of a domain, it uses a different naming scheme than when it is a member

of a workgroup. At the office, the full computer name is essentially the Fully Quali-

fied Domain Name (FQDN) of the computer, which identifies the computer’s name

as well as its place on the network. At home, your computer has a computer name

and a workgroup associated with it.

As Figure 20-1 shows, you can determine the domain or workgroup membership for

your computer on the Computer Name tab in the System Properties dialog box. If

you have appropriate permissions, you can also use this tab to modify the com-

puter’s name and its domain or workgroup membership.

You can access the Computer Name tab in the System Properties dialog box by com-

pleting these steps:

1. Click Start and then click Control Panel.

2. In the Control Panel, click System and Maintenance and then click System.

3. In the System Console, click “Change settings” under “Computer name,

domain, and workgroup settings.” Alternatively, click Advanced System Settings

in the left pane.

4. Click the Computer Name tab.

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Chapter 20: Handling Routine Maintenance and Troubleshooting

You can use the options on the Computer Name tab to join a computer to a domain

or to change a computer’s name. To join a computer to a domain, follow these steps:

1. On the Computer Name tab of the System Properties dialog box, click Network

ID to start the Join a Domain or Workgroup Wizard.

2. Click Next three times to accept the default options.

3. As shown in Figure 20-2, enter the name of your domain user account, the pass-

word for this account, and the name of the domain. You will use this account to

connect to the domain.

4. When you click Next, the wizard will search for a computer account in your user

account domain. If the wizard can’t find a computer account, you’ll need to

specify the computer name and computer domain to use, and then click Next.

5. As necessary, type the domain username, password, and domain of an account

with permission to join the computer to the previously specified domain, and

then click OK.

6. Click Finish and then click OK.

7. You’ll see a prompt stating that you need to restart the computer. Click Restart

Now to restart the computer.

Figure 20-1. Viewing the computer name

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You can move a computer from a domain to a workgroup by following these steps:

1. On the Computer Name tab of the System Properties dialog box, click Change.

This displays the Computer Name/Domain Changes dialog box, shown in

Figure 20-3.

Figure 20-2. Providing your credentials for connecting to the domain

Figure 20-3. Changing the membership of the computer