UWWI Frequently Asked Questions

This document is intended as a starting place to find answers to relevant questions. Directly below you’ll find links to some separate documents which cover different categories of questions. Below that you’ll find an index of every question addressed in these categories. Each question is conveniently linked directly to the location where the question is addressed within the separate documents. We welcome suggestions as to additional questions that should be added to this document.

Glossary of Windows Terms

• What is a domain?
• What is an OU?
• What is a tree?
• What is a forest?
• What is a site?
• What is a schema?
• What is Active Directory?
• What is a global catalog server?
• What is the top-level domain or forest root domain?
• What is group policy or a GPO?
• What is the group policy loopback feature?
• What is an ACL or access-control list?
• What is an ACE or access-control entry?
• What is a SID?

How Things Work

• What are the default users & groups in Windows?
• How does the Windows authentication mechanism work? And how does Windows authorization work?
• Are other types of authentication allowed besides Kerberos?
• How does the authentication mechanism get chosen? What's the LmCompatibilityLevel setting?
• I have Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT 4 workstations in my department, which obviously don’t have kerberos. How do they participate?
• How does someone in my department get access to files on someone else’s computer in another department?
• Can I restrict everyone except members of my domain from logging into our department's workstations?
• How do we handle students who walk away from public workstations leaving themselves logged on? Can we set kerberos ticket lifetimes?
• How can I remotely access my Windows computer?
• How does name resolution work with Windows?
• How does browsing (“my network places”) work with Windows?
• I hate browse lists. Can I turn them off?
• What is a WINS server and is there a central WINS service?
• How does a cross-forest trust work?
• What happens with global catalogs cross-forest?
• What happens with group memberships cross-forest?
• How does Group Policy and Logon Scripts work cross-forest?
• What is the order of group policy processing?
• How does the Windows Address Book work cross-forest?
• Is SID Filtering relevant to forest trusts?
• On which DCs does auditing occur? i.e. when I log in, what security events are logged where?
• How does the selective auth functionality work & is it useful for us?

Common Questions and Scenarios

• What can I do with UWWI? Why should I use it? What are the benefits?
• I recently changed my name.  Why hasn't my new name shown up in the UW Windows Infrastructure?
• I've recently changed my affiliation with the University - why aren't I in the right affiliation-based groups?
• Why can't I see what groups my friends and co-workers are in?
• My password doesn't seem to work.  How can I fix this?
• How do I configure my workstation so I can login interactively with my UWWI user account?
• I can login on some computers but not others. Why is this happening?
• I can login with my UWWI user account, but I can't access resources on a server even though I've granted that account access. What's wrong?
• What should my LmCompatibilityLevel settings be?
• How do I make use of UWWI groups?
• How do I limit access to a share or folder to students in a particular course?
• How do I limit access to a Web page to just faculty and staff?
• Should I use Pubcookie or the UW Windows Infrastructure with my web-based application?