Bypass domain join during client deployment in a Windows Server 2012 Essentials network

An interesting blog was published titled, “How to skip domain joining during client deployment in a Windows Server 2012 Essentials network” – http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserveressentials/thread/aa40963c-7235-40f7-85f5-8f8d030a7c13

To do this, you need to edit a registry key on the client computer.

  1. On your client computer, open an elevated command prompt.
  2. Type the following:
    reg add “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Server\ClientDeployment” /v SkipDomainJoin /t REG_DWORD /d 1

There may be situations where you wish to connect a PC to the Windows Server 2012 Essentials server, but leave the PC off the domain. It may be that this is a personal PC or laptop, but the user requires the Client Backup functionality without adding the laptop to the corporate domain. Another possibility may be the existence of a larger +25 CAL domain, where the Essentials server is to be a client backup server only. At this moment, Windows Storage Server 2008R2 Essentials can be used for this purpose. However, no Windows Server 2012 edition of this server has been announced.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Solve the Equation to continue * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.