When you don't have a domain, it's not so big of deal, but as soon as you have a domain those machines become a PITA.
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When you don't have a domain, it's not so big of deal, but as soon as you have a domain those machines become a PITA.
Computer Bloke
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True, but many machines will now never need to connect to a domain, at least in the small-to-medium business space. A Home Edition of Windows isn't the big red flag it used to be.
The days when we could routinely recommend a Small Business Server or its equivalent to a small business and know that it was the right solution are long past. There are always going to be exceptions but increasingly the provision of networked printers, a NAS or other shared local storage and everything else in the cloud is the right way to go, especially in a world of BYOD; there's nothing there that needs a full-size server, a domain or a Professional edition of the OS.
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YeOldeStonecat
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True...sometimes I feel like doubling my rates of there are "homeless" editions of Windows to manage.
Always end up causing you extra time to deal with junk. Good example was last fall we took on a big fire equipment sales company, tons of sales people out there that never came to the office, had home editions of Windows on residential grade laptops from the prior tech, to remote into their terminal server to get access to Pulse 'n Macola. A couple of times needed local Administrator access to do "whatever" or the local user forgot their password or needed a reset, account didn't have local admin priv. Luckily we replaced with a proper fleet of biz grade Thinkpads with WinPro so didn't have to wrestle with them for long.
Or if they do work at the office...it's just so much easier to manage a fleet when it's a domain, push out printers, push out GPOs to control things, push out software, tie user accounts with O365 and/or other cloud services. The cost savings in "ease of management" easily wins over the little 99 dollar price diffy of the OS version.
