"You probably have seen or heard about HomeGroup by now. We demonstrated it at PDC this year during Steven's keynote, it was mentioned a few times at WinHec, and some of you may have even tried it on your PCs with the PDC pre-beta build of Windows 7. HomeGroup represents a new end-to-end approach to sharing in the home, an area in which Windows has provided many features before - the intuitive end to end is what's new. HomeGroup recognizes and groups your Windows 7 PCs in a 'simple to set up' secure group that enables open access to media and digital memories in your home. With HomeGroup, you can share files in the home, stream music to your XBOX 360 or other devices, and print to the home printer without worrying about technical setup or even understanding how it all works. This blog post is designed to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how we designed HomeGroup."
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Member since:2006-02-05
Workgroups are peer to peer networks of computers. Name resolution is done via netbios. The only way to do anything on another computer is to have an account on that computer. No computer has control over another one.
Domains are networks set up by a domain controller. Name resolution is done via a DNS server. Your domain account determines your rights on any computer on the domain. Group policies can be pushed out over the network to control most features in windows is a very granular fashion. Domain admins have admin rights on every computer on the domain, and can do everything from lock it down to push out network wide deployments of software.
The computers communicate together with smb, that is the only similarity between domains and workgroups.
Member since:2006-01-06
You seem to be confusing "features that require a domain" with "properties of a domain itself".
As are domains. The only difference is that one peer has some extra services.
Name resolution is done via netbios.
(You mean WINS) or DNS. There is nothing stopping you using DNS on a workgroup.
The only way to do anything on another computer is to have an account on that computer. No computer has control over another one.
Correct, workgroups don't have centralized authentication.
Domains are networks set up by a domain controller.
Sort of. You can add a domain controller to an existing workgroup to make it a domain.
Name resolution is done via a DNS server.
Or WINS. While Windows 2000 and above force you to set up a DNS server when setting up a domain, there is no requirement for the members of the domain to actually use that DNS server. In fact, the domain can work perfectly fine in this way.
Your domain account determines your rights on any computer on the domain.
Its, far more complicated than that. A domain provides centralized authentication, but each computer can have it's own security configuration, granting or not any rights to both domain and local users.
This is a feature that requires a domain, not a property of the domain itself.
Domain admins have admin rights on domain members by default, but you can easily remove the domain admins group from the local admins group. The ability to push software is another feature that requires a domain.
The computers communicate together with smb, that is the only similarity between domains and workgroups.
Basically, the properties of a domain are a superset of those of a workgroup.
Member since:
2006-01-06
Not they aren't. A domain is simply a workgroup with a few extra features, like centralized authentication. From the perspective of a non-member, there is no difference between a domain and a workgroup. There is also an easy upgrade path from workgroup to domain as all you need to do is add a domain controller (then clients can be added to the domain at will).