Windows Server 2008 R2: Active Directory Offline Domain Join

In my last two videos, we focused on two updates to the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) that were made in the R2 version of Windows Server 2008.

The first video, looked at the Active Directory Administrative Center which can enhance the way administrators manage Active Directory objects. In the second video, we examined the Active Directory Best Practices Analyzer which can help administrators reduce best practice violations by scanning AD Domain Services and reporting best practice violations. Today I’m going to show you how to do an Active Directory Offline Domain Join (ODJ).

Active Directory Offline Domain Join

There is a new tool included with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 called Djoin.exe. This tool allows clients to be joined to a domain without any network connectivity. There are any number of circumstances where you may want to have a client computer join to a domain when they have no access to a domain controller. On example might be if you are creating a new branch office and the servers are not functional yet in that location, but you would like to begin rolling out the clients. This is something that I did for a client about 10 years ago. Back then we pretty much had 2 choices. We could either build out the client computers at the main location and then ship them to the new office or just wait for the servers to get set up. Neither of the options is very efficient for business.

Now with the ability to do an Offline Domain Join we can get the clients ready in their new location without waiting for the local domain controllers to get there. Microsoft has also built in the ability to do an ODJ with an unattended answer file so the process can be automated if you have a lot of clients to deploy.

If you would like to learn more about the Active Directory Offline Domain Join then this article from Microsoft TechNet might come in handy. If you’re looking to get hands-on experience with Server 2008 R2 and want to get certified, then take a look at my Windows Server 2008 training lineup.

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