RE: Re: Windows MCE

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hmm... sort of, actually it's only *partly* true....

MCE 2005 *does* have *some* domain support built in... - it *can* be joined
to a domain during installation, - the option is there during the setup
routine exactly as it is during the setup of ordinary XP Pro...

What's missing out of the box is the ability to join/leave/change domains
after the OS is installed, - there are no control panel or UI elements
present which allow you to do this, however, in the recent past I have read
of at least two methods by which this can be accomplished, and a little
googling should be able to get you this info, so even that limitation
appears to have mostly gone away.

However, the main caveat is that if the MCE PC *is* a domain member, then
you cannot use the friendly logon screen (the one with the nice pictures),
and you also cannot use fast user switching - you must use the traditional
CTRL-ALT-DEL & logon box method (this applies to other the versions of
XP as well...) - so what, you might ask... - well, my understanding is that
MCE Extenders depend on the fast user switching feature to operate, so if
your MCE PC is a domain member then you cannot get extenders to connect to
it... - Note that I haven't tested this since I don't have any extenders.

However, nearly all of what you would need a domain for can be worked
around with a little effort, - I've just rebuilt my main living room MCE
PC, and this time round I have *not* joined it to a domain, whereas it's
previous build *was* a domain member. I have now configured the PC such
that it is almost impossible to tell the difference. Do things like:

Create a local account with exactly the same username & password as
your domain account - this aids with pass-through authentication.
Make the workgroup name exactly the same as your domain name - this aids
with netbios browsing.
Turn off "simple file sharing" - this gives you access to the
proper security tab for shares, then permit the local "everyone"
user account at least read rights to all shares, this permits other domain
users/PC's to access the MCE machines shares
As well as share permissions, remember to set appropriate ACL's on the NTFS
filesystem objects as well, - again grant the everyone account at least
read rights.

All these things require a little extra admin effort, but I'm presuming
that in a home scenario, you'll have no problems accepting the slightly
reduced security, and also you probably wont be enforcing things like
password expiry and so on, so most of this stuff only needs to be done once
and then it just works.

HTH

Paul G.


________________________________

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx on behalf of Nigel Giddings
Sent: Wed 18/01/2006 22:30
To: UKHA_D Group
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Re: Windows MCE



Conversely Bill also thinks business doesn't need MCE type
functionality...

Strangely I know of a few that do...

Nigel

-----Original Message-----
From: Mal Lansell [mailto:mal@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 18 January 2006 21:03
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Re: Windows MCE

It's true - no domain support.  Bill thinks that domains are for work,
and home users won't want that.  Just like no-one would need more than
640k of RAM.

One day a company will demonstrate a home app that requires domains, and

he'll buy them and enable domains in the home versions of Windows.

Mal




Nick wrote:

>Keith Finnett wrote:
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>>MCE is actually XP Pro with domain
>>networking removed and the MCE
>>app added...give or take...!
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>Not got around to looking at MCE yet, but does it seriously have the
>domain networking nobbled like XP Home?  If it does then I wonder how
>Bill G would expect me to plug it into my XP Pro and W2003 server
>world where EVERYTHING ELSE authenticates against the domain?!?!!?
>
>Odd!
>
>Nick
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>Yahoo! Groups Links
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