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The company that I work for continuously hires new people, and I'm the one who has to go and purchase new computers. The majority of them, if not all, come pre-installed with Windows Home editions. I'm noticing that the Windows 7/8 Home editions are unable to connect to domains. I'm having to buy the upgrades to the Pro editions. I'm trying to understand as to why the Home edition of the OS is unable to connect to domains?
4Because its not a feature of that version of Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 8? – Ramhound – 2012-12-07T17:25:28.550
I know it's not a feature. I'm asking why isn't it a feature? What's preventing it. – PiousVenom – 2012-12-07T17:26:42.707
2If Home Premium had this feature then there would be no reason for businesses to purchase Professional and Enterprise versions. The good news is Windows 8 Professional does support joining domains which should be used anyways in an office. – Ramhound – 2012-12-07T17:30:14.167
So, you're saying that it's more of a money grab and not something that is more of a fundamental reason? – PiousVenom – 2012-12-07T17:32:19.067
2How are we suppose to know we are not Microsoft – Ramhound – 2012-12-07T17:33:31.463
I guess I was just hoping that someone would have answer about maybe the internal architecture of that version just couldn't support it, and provide an explanation. – PiousVenom – 2012-12-07T17:35:14.703
6There is no technical limitation beyond the fact it literally does not support doing so. Beyond that discussions which only internal staff at Microsoft can answer are not productive. – Ramhound – 2012-12-07T17:42:08.090
You need to talk to your Microsoft reseller about volume licensing. – Michael Hampton – 2012-12-07T17:42:46.920
At least XP home can connect to domain but I really dont want to recommend trying it... dont know about Vista/7/8 how they do but basically XP and older doses has same functionality with Pro editions but most of UI features are just disabled or hidden. – Sampo Sarrala - codidact.org – 2012-12-07T22:47:48.907
@Sampo XP Home Edition can't connect to a domain, at least officially. – Alexey Ivanov – 2012-12-08T19:50:15.720
1All editions are identical to the extent that some of the features are removed. Vista included all editions on the same disk, the edition is selected by the product key. So basically when you buy Upgrade, you buy unlock for the features you need. Most users at home do not need to connect to domain, thus this feature is removed and costs less than Professional, where the latter is targeted at businesses. – Alexey Ivanov – 2012-12-08T19:54:38.050
@AlexeyIvanov yeah, that's officially. In reality it is different but I believe that this has changed with post XP releases. If this is case then difference in XP was that underlying features was NOT locked but only UI was locked, one can use features but not with nice graphical tools (or with nice cli tools). It also seems there's been tools available to automate some or all of the configuration steps. – Sampo Sarrala - codidact.org – 2012-12-09T02:22:28.020