Auto join domain after deployment, without fogclient?
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Hi all, I have computers being auto renamed based on the host name from doing the full registration step, but was wondering if I could have it auto join a domain as well without having the fogclient installed on the image?
If i went to the host management edit and filed in the info under Active Directory, would that actually work?
Otherwise, since I am not using unattend file, is my other option creating a powershell script do join domain on boot?
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@chenguy The rename feature that works without the fog-client does some “magic” on the registry files after deploying the image to the target disk. Name change is possible this way. But for domain join you really need the OS to boot and talk to the domain controller. There is no way to do this as a post-task after imaging. So yes, you might be able to come up with a powershell script that runs on first boot and then deletes itself (or checks if it’s joined already on subsequent boot ups).
I am moving this to windows problems as this is nothing FOG can help you with if you don’t want to use the fog-client software.
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ok thank you, was wondering how fog handled the computer name
will look into powershell script to handle the domain join
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@chenguy I guess I would have to ask why are you not using an unattend.xml file?
At my company we don’t use the FOG client to manage the computers post imaging so that means FOG is not renaming the computer, connecting it to AD, or placing it in the correct OU. My environment is a bit complex so the hostname and AD OU location is calculated during imaging with the results updated in the unattend.xml file before FOG releases the computer and the target computer is rebooted. This is done before OOBE/WinSetup starts for the first time. Using this approach you can use the load and go method of image deployment where you don’t register the computer with FOG and FOG will forget about the computer once imaged. Understand using this method without the FOG client there is no post imaging management included including snapin deployment. We have other tools for that.
Using the unattend.xml file alone we can select the desired keyboard layout, computer name, connect to AD, etc.