I learned something today. It is possible to have a Windows computer join a domain over VPN. My colleague suggested this to be true once but i never actually tried it myself. And here’s how.
Be at the office, or at home. Take the computer that’s going to the customer and install all the security updates. Make a VPN conection to the customer. Check that the DNS settings for the subnet behind the VPN connection points to the nameserver of the customer. If you’re running a well configured VPN, that should happen automagically (also if you’re running Windows VPN).
Right-click My Computer, choose Properties, do the usual drill from Computer Name to join the customer’s domain. Reboot.
And here comes the trick.
Log in as the old local user. Re-ignite the VPN connection. Start –> Switch user. Log in as administrator (or whoever) from the customer domain. This will, oddly enough, de-activate the VPN connection, so you’ll need to rebuild it.
Do the other tricks you wanted to as a member of the customer’s domain.
Easy as pie, once you know the recepie.
