There are many different ways to connect Windows systems
together to share files, printers and other resources.
In this video, we'll look at the difference between homegroups,
workgroups, and domains.
As the name implies, a Windows homegroup
is designed for use in the home.
It allows a group of trusted systems
to be able to share files, printers, and other resources
between each other.
This only works on a single private network,
and you cannot expand it beyond the capabilities of that single
network.
To share information across multiple networks,
you may want to look into using a Windows workgroup.
A workgroup allows you to create a logical grouping of devices.
So there could be a marketing workgroup, a shipping
and receiving workgroup, and an accounting department
workgroup.
One of the challenges of managing a Windows workgroup is
all of the credentials are stored on the local computer.
Each device is a standalone system.
So if you have a username and password
that you use to gain access to print
to a printer in the accounting department,
you could have a completely different login
to gain access to files that are located
in shipping and receiving.
This is why, if you're part of an organization,
you're probably not using a homegroup
and not using a workgroup.
You're instead using a Windows domain.
A Windows domain is a centralized system
that allows you to manage users, devices, and anything else
on the network, all from one central authentication service.
Windows domains can be used in organizations
with a handful of users, or it can scale up
to the largest organizations that
may have thousands of individuals and computers
that need to be managed.
Homegroup was originally designed as a way
to easily share resources between trusted computers.
This was available in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1.
It was initially included in Windows 10,
but you'll notice now that homegroup
has been removed from Windows 10,
and you won't find any homegroup capabilities
in the latest versions of any Windows 10 editions.
Whenever you connected devices together on a homegroup,
they could easily share pictures, videos, music,
documents, printers, and other devices.
Inside of Windows, you would configure your network profile
to be the home profile.
And once you enabled that capability,
you could turn on the homegroup functionality.
This gave a single password that everybody on the network
could use.
Once all of the devices were configured
to be on the home network, you can then create a homegroup.
Instead of having a separate username and password
for every single person on the network,
you instead have a single homegroup password
that you can share between systems.
Once a system was configured with the homegroup-shared
password, it would then have access
to all of those shared resources across the network.
Windows work groups are designed for small organizations
or small groups of people that need to share information.
Each computer can be added to a workgroup.
And the user names and passwords to gain access
to resources on that computer are not
shared with any of the other devices on the network.
This means that the username and password to gain access
to resources on one computer could
be very different than the username and password used
to gain resources on another computer.
This means if you want to change your password,
you have to change that password on every single computer
associated with this workgroup.
To add, remove, or manage the work group settings,
you would go to the control panel under System
and make all of the changes under the Computer
name, domain, and workgroup settings section.
If you're in a business or an organization,
then you're not going to use a homegroup or work group.
You'll instead use a Microsoft domain.
That domain exists as a centralized database
of information called the Active Directory Domain Services.
And from the central database, we can add all of our users
and authenticate all of those users
to any other resource on the network.
This means if someone needs access
to any share on any server that's located anywhere
on the network, they can authenticate and confirm
rights to those resources, all from this centralized database.
This database not only contains the user information,
but it also contains information about the devices that
are connected to the network.
This allows the system administrator
to manage any aspect of the operating system
and update or install applications that may
be running on those systems.
To add or remove a device from the domain,
you go to the control panel under the System applet.
If you're connecting a computer to a Microsoft domain,
you have to make sure you're running
an addition of Windows that supports that connectivity.
You would not be able to use a Windows Home Edition to join
a Windows domain.
To be able to add that computer to the domain,
you would go to the control panel system.
Under the Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings,
you would choose to Change the settings.
You would see, under the System Properties, the computer name,
and there is a wizard that allows you to join
a domain or a workgroup.
So we'll click that Network ID.
Then we select that This computer is part of a business
network and I use it to connect to other computers at work.
It then asks, Is your company network on a domain?
And you can choose that it uses a network with a domain
or without.
And in our choice, we'll choose With a domain.
It then mentions that you will need
your user name, your password, and your user account domain
name.
You might also need your computer name
and your computer's domain name.
If you don't have that information,
you'll need to check with your local administrators
to see if you have the right information.
From there, you need to provide your user name, your password,
and the domain name to be able to add
this system to the Microsoft Windows domain.
Access to a Windows domain must be
granted by the administrator.
So if your credentials do not allow access to the domain,
you will need to check with your local administrator
to get the proper access.