Joining Windows 7 to the Domain

From Linux Schools Project Documentation

In order for a Windows 7 client to successfully join a Karoshi domain several changes have to be made on the client. This is due to Microsoft's changes and how it interacts with NT style domains.

First make sure your Karoshi system is up to date : Update Karoshi

You must disable UAC for logons to work correctly as it prevents many scripts from operating when enabled (to setup printers, shares etc).

Then download and merge this registry file on the client: https://bugzilla.samba.org/attachment.cgi?id=4988&action=view

This registry edit performs the following changes:

HKLM\System\CCS\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters
           DWORD  DomainCompatibilityMode = 1
           DWORD  DNSNameResolutionRequired = 0

Hiding drives:

We were having some problems with hiding drives in roaming profiles - many thanks to Bernard for this fix:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManWorkstation\Parameters] "DNSNameResolutionRequired"=dword:00000000 "DomainCompatibilityMode"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoDrives"=Dword:00000004

Slow Logins

Windows 7 can take a long time to log in and sits on the welcome page for a minute.

The advice on this link seems to vastly improve the login speed.

http://www.clearfoundation.com/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,232/catid,18/func,view/id,26848/

"Open group policy editor [Start -> Run -> "gpedit.msc"] Follow these paths once you are in the GPol.

Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / System / User Profiles "Set maximum wait time for the network if a user has a roaming...." to 1 (setting it to 0 will default it to 30 seconds)

Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / System / Group Policy "Startup policy processing wait time..." to 1 (do NOT set it to 0)"

This will be set when you join the client to the domain. This will be rolled out with the next Karoshi patch.

After this you can also download by request this hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2171571

This stops Windows 7 displaying an error message about changing primary DNS name. 
Although you can ignore this error message when it is displayed, as it does not affect operation.

Finally reboot the machine so that all the changes take affect and log back in as the local administrator.

You will now be able to successfully join the domain as you would with a XP machine. Reboot after you join the domain.

Log in as an itadmin level user the first time so that all of the required applications are installed automatically for you.

Update