Windows 7 Home Premium on Small Business Server 2003. What is the disadvantage of not using Pro

windows 7windows-sbs

As a volunteer, I look after the office computers at a small private school. We have Small Business Server 2003 and about ten desktops. Nearly all the desktops are XP Pro and are joined to the domain.

They bought a new laptop for someone without involving me but now want me to connect it to the network. Unfortunately, they bought it with Windows 7 Home Premium. If they had asked, I would have recommended Pro so it could join the domain.

I should probably hassle them about this and insist that they upgrade it to Windows 7 Pro but I'm struggling to answer the obvious question which I'll probably be asked. What is the real disadvantage if they don't upgrade to Pro?

I know it can't be managed from the server but, to be honest, I haven't done much "managing" of the other workstations anyway.

I assume that I can map network drives on this machine by keeping the user name and password the same as on the server. Can someone confirm that please? I've done this with the one XP Home machine we have that someone donated. Outlook seems to be able to connect to Exchange just fine too. The fact that the user won't be able to change the server password really isn't a big deal in this organization.

We run WSUS but I don't think I've ever declined an update so the standard windows update will work for this one. I've haven't really done anything with policies.

They need this machine setup kind of urgently so… am I missing anything before I bite my tongue or hold my nose and do the somewhat hacky thing to make Windows 7 Home work?

Best Answer

These are the differences:
- As you said, join the machine to the domain.
- Cannot run Windows XP mode
- You cannot make backups to a network.
- Unlike Windows XP you wont can map network drives on Windows 7 home editions.
- As @Multiverse said in this answer you can not connet to the computer by RDP.

Microsoft has a comparision page of the Windows 7 Editions.

Outlook can connect to the exachange without hassles.

Windows 7 home edition can connect to a WSUS, but keep in mind that how it's not a domain you will ned to manually modifiy the Windows Update registry keys to make it to connect to the WSUS Server.

Related Solutions

Upgrade Small Business Server 2003 to a “normal” server

Sam beat me to this, as his answer came whilst I was typing mine. As Sam recommended, I will point you to the transition pack, from Microsoft. This knowledge article can also be very helpful, as well as this post, from which I quote one entry:

Install Windows 2003 on a new computer.

Setup TCP/IP using static IP and DNS pointing to the SBS DNS.

Join it to the SBS domain.

Install DNS and WINS (if you have Exchange and VPN connection, it is better to install WINS).

Run adprep /forestprerp to extend your Active Directory forest's schema.

Promote the Windows 2003 to be a DC by running dcpromo. When the Domain Controller Type displays, select Additional domain controller for an existing domain. then follow the instruction to finish the process.

After rebooting the new DC, change the DNS and WINS point to the new DC IP.

Make the new DC as a Global Catalog Server. To do that, open Active Directory Sites and Services. Expand Sites, Expand Servers, then expand NTDS Settings. Right click NTDS Settings for the DC and Click Properties. Check Global Catalog.

Transferring the FSMO roles to the new DC. 1) Open Active Directory Users and Computers. Right-click on the domain name and selectOperations Masters. In the RID tab, click the change button to change the RID Master role to the new DC. Repeat this for each of the other tabs (PDS and Infrastructure). 2) To transfer the Domain Naming Master, Open Active Directory Domains and Trusts. Right-click on it and select Operations Master. Click the change button to change the Operations Master to the new DC. 3) to transfer the Schema Master role, follow these steps: a) Go to command line and run regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll, and then click OK. b) Run mmc, and then add Active Directory Schema. c) Right-click Active Directory Schema, and then click Change Domain Controller. Specify the new DC server name. d) Right-click Active Directory Schema, and then click Operations Master. In the Change Schema Master dialog box, click Change.

Move the site licensing server from the SBS 2003 to the new DC. To do this, open Active Directory Sites and Services. Expand Sites and then click Default-First-Site-Name. Right-click Licensing Site Settings, and then click Properties. Click Change, type the name of DC in the Enter the object name to select area, and then click OK.

Reboot the DC. Check Event ID 1119 or 1869 on the DC to make sure the DC is a GC.

To remove the GC from SBS, open Active Directory Sites and Services. Expand Sites, Expand Servers, then expand SBS NTDS Settings. Right click NTDS Settings for Exchange01 and click Properties. Uncheck Global Catalog.

Demote SBS. To do this, Click Start, Run, type dcpromo and click OK. Following the instruction. After that, the SBS will be a member server. To remove SBS from the domain, right click My Computer and select properties. Click the Computer Name tab and click the Workgroup radio button. Enter WORKGROUP for the new workgroup name and click OK. You will be prompted to reboot.

Bottom line, I do not see any major problems on a migration from SBS 2003 to 'regular' Windows Server 2003.

How to disable ‘password never expires’ for Windows 7 home edition

The secret mantra turns out to be:

wmic path Win32_UserAccount WHERE Name='MyUserName' set PasswordExpires=true

Related Topic

Domain – workstation on domain won’t accept any domain credentials for access