deployment software for mixed platform network

[Guest]

I have a 24 PC lab that just added 8 Vista Home machines (mistake) and has
14 Win 2000 and 2 XP Pro machines. The lab is managed through one of the XP
Pro PC's. I would like to deploy a lab management software pkg throughout but
can't get the Vista machines to connect to the domain. Any thoughts?

Many Thanks
The Professor

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Vista Home cannot join the domain It can make use of domain resources, but
domain-related passwords won't be cached--they will need to be entered each
time.

You could upgrade these machines via a purchased instant upgrade:

Start, control panel, system and maintenance,. Windows anytime upgrade.

You would need to purchase 24 of these upgrades, but I believe you can
follow the process 24 times on one machine. The end product of the
procedure is a new product key, and you'll need 24 of those.

However--I'm reasonably sure that you'd be better off seeing whether you can
get a volume license for these upgrades from a qualified volume licensing
vendor. You may have an existing relationship with such a vendor--but some
of the larger mailorder houses can do this--I think that buy.comn and
newegg.com, for example, can do volume licensing properly.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Whoops - sorry--I was in error on the numbers.

You need 8 upgrades. This is still enough that volume licensing (which
starts at 5) might be worth the effort.)

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