Determining Logon Context

Users can log on to the local computer using a local account, or they can log on to the domain using a domain account. Which account a user logs on with determines the logon context, and if a user logs on with a local account, access to domain resources will be limited to permissions granted to the local account.

As an example, imagine that Jasmin has a domain account in the Google.com domain named Jasmin (Google\Jasmin) and a local computer account on a computer named Win7 (Win7\Jasmin). She could be granted full control for a share using the Google\Jasmin account but no access using her Win7\Jasmin account.

Note Accounts are commonly listed in the format domain\account or computer\ account If it is a domain account, the NetBIOS name of the domain (Google if the domain is named Google com) is used If it is a local computer account, the name of the computer is used.

If you've verifi ed that Google\Jasmin has full control to the share but she is being denied access, you should check the logon context. One way to do so is by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del to access the Ctrl+Alt+Del menu.

You can see that the account is identified as Win7\Jasmin, indicating that she is logged on using the local account. If it was the domain account, it would be listed as username.

You can also use the whoami command from the command line. This will return the username in the format of domain\username for a domain account or computer\username for a local account. The whoami /all command will also list SIDs, group memberships, and privileges for the account.