My wife just got an Inspirion 6400. I'd like to make it a member of my
domain at home. It has XP Media Edition. Can I add it to the domain
without XP Pro installed?

Officially, no, but there are ways to do it.

MCE (XP Media Center Edition) is XP Pro with one omission and a lot of
additions. Unfortunately for you, the one omission is that domain
network support was taken out (for a reason ... it conflicts with
support for "Media Center Extenders", which, however, not many people use).

There are two ways to join a network with Media Center, however:

1. During installation, you get ONE chance to join a static domain that
cannot be later changed (at least not easily). At best, taking
advantage of that would require reinstallation from scratch, and even
then it will only work if you do a "full" installation from real install
discs. It won't work if "reinstallation" is simply the application of
an "image" to the hard drive.

2. There are unapproved, unofficial patches on the web to restore
domain support to MCE (you lose support for Media Extenders, a trade off
that many are more than happy to make). You will have to do a search
for them, and it may take a bit of work or even a reinstallation, but
restoring normal domain networking support is possible (it may require
that you have a "real" MCE reinstallation media).

Microsoft's logic here is that MCE is mostly a residential user product,
and that very few home residential users need, want or use domain
networking. Although the logic is correct in most cases, there are
exceptions, both home users who have a domain, as well as business uses
for MCE.



76steelers wrote:
> My wife just got an Inspirion 6400. I'd like to make it a member of my
> domain at home. It has XP Media Edition. Can I add it to the domain
> without XP Pro installed?
>

On 27 Dec 2006 in comp.sys.laptops, 76steelers wrote:

> My wife just got an Inspirion 6400. I'd like to make it a member of
> my domain at home. It has XP Media Edition. Can I add it to the
> domain without XP Pro installed?

No:
While you can access network resources on a work network or a
domain, you cannot join a Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC
to the domain. PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 are
designed specifically for home use. Windows XP Professional
features, specifically Domain Join and Cached Credentials
(Credentials Manager for logons) are not included. ...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/m...ation/faq.mspx

Yes:
There is a method to allow an MCE computer to join a Windows
networking domain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...Center_Edition

As always, use hacks at your own risk.

More Information:

http://www.google.com/search?q=xp+media+center+domain

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

76steelers wrote:
> My wife just got an Inspirion 6400. I'd like to make it a member of my
> domain at home. It has XP Media Edition. Can I add it to the domain
> without XP Pro installed?
>

Do you really have a domain at home, or a workgroup?

--
Gary Gate