Knowledge Base & FAQ's

Would you like to...

There is ONLY ONE WAY to do this in SBS 2003 and that's through the connectcomputer wizard. (You can see (See http://sbsurl.com/connectcomputer to see what gets done with this tool).

This is a good article on how to add a PC to an SBS domain: http://sbsurl.com/add

Before You Start

If you haven't already installed Office on your workstations, Connectcomputer will automatically install Outlook 2003. I suggest that you install Office first, because when SBS installs Outlook separately it puts it in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Outlook instead of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office .. and then when you install Office, it doesn't see Outlook and installs Outlook again, separately. (kinda silly... but that's what happens).

If you don't have more than 15 workstations, then it's probably easier to just install Office manually on each machine. There is no real long term benefit from doing an administrative install. However, I do suggest that you consider deploying Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) if you want to be sure to keep everything up to date. SBS will always deploy Office Service Packs... but not the interim updates.

See the article on Installing and Configuring Windows Software Update Services (WSUS)

Watch out for this minor gotcha

After a PC has joined the domain if you check the client PC - Users - you will see that the user that you have joined the domain with is part of the DeBugger users. This is fine if you want to be a DeBugger user but a pain if you don't (which is pretty much all of us)

This problem is sort of a 2 part gotcha because If you remove the user from the DeBugger Group and put him in the Local Administrators group, he'll end up back in the DeBugger if you don't delete that group. I've found no reason to keep the group so go ahead and delete it after moving the user to the local admins.