How to: Windows 7 Offline Domain Join

section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 27.1.2009

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Since Windows NT4, clients who wanted to join a domain always needed a direct connection to the domain, either via VPN, dial-in or direct connection. New in Windows 2008 R2 is the option for an offline domain join.. how does this work.. ? read on!

A new program is introduced called djoin.exe. We can use djoin.exe to join a computer to the domain without actually having a connection to it.

How does this work?

1. Logon to a system that already is a member of the domain with an account that is allowed to join computers to the domain
2. Use djoin.exe to create a text file (the blob) that contains all information for the computer to join the domain when it is online.
3. On the new computer use djoin.exe to import the blob
4. Reboot the new computer when it’s connected to the network

By default, computer accounts are created in the Computers OU, however we might not want the new machines to be placed in that OU. If this is the case, create a new OU and make sure the account that you run djoin under has sufficient rights to it. To provision a new computer, use the following command: djoin /provision /domain /machine /savefile blob.txt

The command will create a new computer object and a file called blob.txt.

Optionally you can specify the OU using the parameter /Machineou else the default Computers OU is used.

If the computer account object is already created, you can use the /reuse option.

If your domain controller is not yet running Windows Server 2008 R2, use the /downlevel command.

source: blog.avanadeadvisor.com
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