Is there a simpler way to log into a local account on a domain workstation?

Occasionally I need to log into a local machine account on a Windows workstation joined to our domain. The syntax for specifying a domain account looks like this:

DOMAINNAME\myusername

whereas the syntax for logging into a local account is

HOSTNAME\myusername

The problem is that I often don't know the host name off the top of my head. It is possible to find out by clicking the "How do I log onto another domain" link, but this requires me to memorize or write down an often cryptic hostname. Is there another, simpler way to do this?

David

Posted 2011-02-17T14:45:42.927

Reputation: 458

This is Windows 7? – Supercereal – 2011-02-17T14:48:22.107

Either Vista or Windows 7. If there's a Windows 7-only solution, I'd still like to know. Thanks. – David – 2011-02-17T14:53:37.320

Answers

You can use a period to represent the local host name when logging in.

So, .\Administrator would be the local administrator account.

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007

Posted 2011-02-17T14:45:42.927

Reputation: 103 763

Also works in Windows 10. Great. Thanks. – monojohnny – 2018-10-04T15:41:24.420

That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! It works on both Vista and Windows 7, at least. – David – 2011-02-17T15:58:27.957

6This works fine locally, but does not work through RDP because it will specify the local rather than host domain. Is there any shortcut possible via RDP? – djs – 2013-06-25T20:39:46.947

2@djs you know the machine name that you're connecting to if you're using RDP. Or you can do nslookup on the IP address if you connect that way. Doesn't stop you having to type it in though – laurencemadill – 2014-03-19T16:47:48.937