Connect domain machines to workgroup machines

What OS are the computers running?

All are Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate and one Vista machine.

I do this all the time at my workplace. There are a few remote offices that are able to share files over VPN although they are in a workgroup and not the domain.

Make sure the both pc's can see each other by pinging from both ends. Ping the full computer name (eg. pcname.domain). Check your permissions on the shared folder and drop the security to almost zero (Full control).

Thanks but the notebook and PC have to join the domain as I need to browse to some shares and there is a lot of security for many of the intranet sites.

Bascially I need a way to bridge between the domain machines and the workgroup machines that are phsyically located in my home. Is there some way to create a sort of trust between the machines? I do not have access to our domain controllers.
Thx

The domain computer and workgroup computer are physically located in the same room? If this is the case, it'll be easy to get access.

You will need to get the IP address of the computers since PC names will not work with the workgroup computers.

1 Domain computer will probably have 2 IP addresses. One will be from work through their VPN. Another will be for your local area network and most likely start with a 192.168.x.x.

The workgroup computer will have the same 192.168.x.x address.

From your domain computer, you will want to navigate to \\192.168.x.x\C$
x.x being the remaining numbers from your workgroup computer's IP address.

You will be prompted for a username and password. Enter the username and password that you would use to log into that workgroup computer, not your domain username/password. If you do this from your workgroup computer to your domain computer, enter your domain username and password.

You can map a drive as well. Since I'm typing this will be easier to explain:
Open a command prompt on your workgroup computer.
type: net use X: \\192.168.x.x\C$ /user omain\username password

Where 192.168.x.x is the IP address of your domain computer, domain is the domain in which you log into on your work computer. If you don't enter a password, you will be prompted for one.

You can do the same from the domain computer to the workgroup computer. Substitbute the correct IP address and domain will become the workgroup name.

Stupid smilie. it should a ":" followed by your domain name.

Thanks I will try this. What I am really hoping this will allow for is when my associate in India VNC's into the domain machine he will be able to see the drives I want shared on my workstation.
Thanks again

Yeah, that should do it. Worst case you would need to map a drive to the IP address of your workgroup computer. DNS won't work with your workgroup computer so the only way to find it on your network is with the IP address.

Unfortunately this does not appear to be working for me. I cannot reach the workgroup workstation from my domain PC at least right now while I have the VPN connection. I tried pinging the machine I want to connect to using my LAN IP but it times out. Must be missing something...

This isn't quite right. For a workgroup computer, you should use the computer-name (not the workgroup-name) in place of the domain. Usefully, a computer-name of just '\' is the default for the same computer-name you are logging into. So for example, if you have given the workgroup computer the computername 'Awesome', and your user account name is 'Guy' and the IP address of 'Awesome' is 192.168.0.2, then you would login as
net use X: \\192.168.0.2\C$ /user:Awesome\Guy
or just
net use X: \\192.168.0.2\C$ /user:\Guy

The dialogue you get with:
Windows Explorer > Tools > Map Network Drive
allows you to do everything that you can do from the command prompt with 'net use', as long as you select 'Connect using a different account' (otherwise it defaults to your current domain login). In the above example, you would enter:
Drive: X:
Folder: \\192.168.0.2\C$
Username: \Guy
Password: ********