For administrative purposes, you might need to log into a Windows 7 locally after it has been joined to a domain. Unfortunately with the Windows 7 login screen, you have to know the computer name in order to log into those accounts – otherwise, it assumes you want to log into the domain.
If you click the How do I log on to another domain? link below the sign in a little message box will pop up and tell you to put ‘domainusername’ in the user name field and if you want to log in locally use ‘computernameusername’. It will actually provide the computer name for you but you then have to type it into the user name field, which could be prone to errors or become tedious if you are accessing a number of computers.
The tip for today: Use ‘.username’ to log into a computer locally. The . will choose the local computer instead of the domain to log into without any extra steps or having to know the computer name. You will see it change immediately with the line below the password field, “Log onto:” will change to reflect your choice.
