Checking your Workgroup in Windows XP.


Guide Overview

The purpose of this guide is to show you how to check the workgroup assigned to your computer, and how to change it if necessary.

To share resources between computers on a home network, such as files and printers, the computers must all have unique names and they must all belong to the same workgroup.

Here's how you check what workgroup your computer belongs to:

Finding the Workgroup Name
  1. Open the Control Panel from the 'Start' menu and double-click on the 'System' icon.



  2. This opens the 'System Properties' window.



  3. Click the 'Computer Name' tab. You will be shown details about the computer's description, name and workgroup.



  4. If everything is correct then click 'Cancel' to close the window and then exit the Control Panel.



Changing the Workgroup Name
  1. On the 'Computer Name' tab described above there is a 'Change' button to allow you to alter the name or workgroup of your computer.
    Clicking this opens the 'Computer Name Changes' window.



  2. Edit the computer name if required. Each computer on the network must have a unique name.
  3. Edit the Workgroup name to be identical to that of the other computers on the network. The workgroup name is displayed in upper case regardless of how it was entered.
  4. Click 'OK'. You will receive a "Welcome to the 'xyz' workgroup" message.
  5. Click 'OK', you will receive a "You must restart this computer for the changes to take effect." message.
  6. Click 'OK' to return to the 'System Properties' window. There will now be a warning message at the bottom looking like this:



  7. Click 'OK' and then exit the Control Panel.
  8. The computer will need to be rebooted for the changes to take effect.


With all your networked computers on the same workgroup you can share their resources such as printers and faxes, drive space, CD/DVD drives as well as sharing files between users.