Add or promote your laptop to domain controller and check the reported issue
Step One
Starting at the desktop, click the Start button. Find Computer and right-click the menu item. A submenu will appear, and you will select Properties
Step Two
The System Properties window will appear. Under the Computer Name, Domain, and Workgroup settings. you will see a shield icon with Change Settings. Click this text link.
Step Three
The System Properties dialog box will appear. Under the Computer Name, tab click the Change… button.
Step Four
A Computer Name/Domain Changes dialog box will appear. Under the Member of section, select the Domain radio button. Input your domain into the field. Your domain name will be supplied by your supervisor or network administrator.
Important! Before adding a system to the domain, make sure there is no other system with that same name.
Step Five
Another dialog box will appear immediately, prompting you to log in using your domain/network credentials. Input your username and password and click the OK button.
Step Six
If you managed to input all your credentials correctly, and you achieve connectivity to the domain controller, you will be welcomed to the xxxxxxxxxx domain.
Step Seven
You will be prompted to restart your system. Click the OK button.
Step Eight
You will be prompted again to restart the computer from the System Properties dialog box near the bottom of the box with Changes will take effect after you restart this computer. Click the Close button.
Step Nine
You will at last be prompted to restart your system again after closing the prior dialog box. Click the Restart Now button to complete the process.
Step Ten
After restarting, you will be welcomed back to Windows with the user logon screen. You will notice that the default login account is a local machine account “MachineName\Username”. Just below the password field, click the “Switch User” button. At the next screen click the “Other User” button (presumably with no display picture). This will automatically put you on the domain. Just sign in with your normal domain credentials beyond this point.
Note: To log back in to the machine account, type in .\Username (Where username is the name of your local account, such as the default Administrator: .\Administrator). Input your password and log in to a local off-domain account.
Hope this helps!
1Why post a bounty when an accepted answer exists? The post is also missing information about the differences between your laptop and other computers, such as domain membership and network. – harrymc – 2014-11-14T06:19:25.530
@harrymc It was a mistake, but too late I had already posted it. The original answer I was looking for was not in the answer, but in the comments, but I didn't realise until after I posted the bounty. – Ben – 2014-11-14T06:22:11.660