How to join a Windows 7 client to a SBS 2008 server

By Mariette Knap intranet settings, vista

Install the Windows 7 client as you normally do and launch Internet Explorer. In the screenshot you see that you need to enable Intranet Settings. Click the Yellow Bar to see the options. One other thing is that you connect to a file that is named WindowsVista.aspx though you are joining a Windows 7 client.

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How to join a Windows 7 client to a SBS 2008 server

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Last year (October 2008) SBS 2008 developers did not know precisely what kind of OS Windows 7 would be and they did not even know that it supposed to be named Windows 7. There were lots and lots of rumors but nobody knew for certain. Basically Windows 7 is the same OS as Windows Vista but it has been optimized and tuned to work quicker. And for sure it does!

Use the Connect Computer Program to join your client

Browse to http://connect/windowsvista.aspx
Choose ‘Enable Intranet Settings’.
Click ‘Yes’
Click ‘Start Connect Computer Program’
Click ‘Run’ and if the UAC kicks in click Yes.
Choose ‘Set up this computer for other users’ and click ‘Next’.
Click ‘Next’.
You need to fill in the credentials of a Network Administrator, click ‘Next’.
This is the place where you set the name of the workstation. Normally the name change would take place during a normal installation with for example Vista or XP but here SBS 2008 fails to join a Windows 7 client. You must NOT change the name here. If you do that the wizard will fail and does not run as it supposed to be doing. Later we will explain how to change the name of a workstation.
Add the users you grant access to this PC. Click ‘Next’.
If you want to move existing user data and settings you can choose old logon names from the drop down menus. We don’t have any because this is a brand new workstation.
Now you can assign the Level of Computer Access. It depends a bit on the applications you have on your Windows 7 client and sometimes you need to assign ‘Local Administrator’ permissions. For now click ‘Next’.
If you agree to the assigned settings click ‘Next’.
Click ‘Restart’.

Rename a Windows 7 client that is joined to a SBS 2008

This step is really only needed because the Wizards while joining a Windows 7 client fails. We saw that in the previous chapter of this article.

Logon to the Windows 7 client with a user name that has ‘Network Administrator’ permissions and right click ‘My Computer’ and click ‘Properties’.
Click ‘Change settings’.
Click ‘Change’.
Fill in the new Computer Name and click ‘OK’
Click ‘OK’
Click ‘Restart Now’.
After the Windows 7 client has been restarted right click ‘My Computer’ and choose ‘Properties’.
And indeed is the computer name changed in DESKTOP-01.
And if you look in the Windows SBS Console you see that the computer name has been changed.

How to configure folder redirection

On your SBS 2008 open the Windows SBS console, click ‘Shared Folders and Web Sites’ and in the right pane click ‘Redirect folders for user accounts to the server’.
Choose the documents you want to redirect and click on ‘User Accounts’.
Select user accounts for folder redirection and click OK.
You will see a warning that you will need to logon three times before the policy change is applied.

Check folder redirection on the Windows 7 client

Now that we have configured folder redirection on the server we want to see what happened on the Windows 7 client.

After 3 times logon open your ‘documents’ folder from the start menu.
On the ‘My Documents’ folder you see the little green dot with the yellow sign in it. That means that folder is redirected to the server and made available offline.
In your taskbar you will also see that sign. Double click it.
In the Sync Center you can check your settings for offline files.

The final check in the event logs.

Open a command prompt from the start menu and in the ‘Search programs and files’ box type ‘cmd’.
Click ‘cmd’ to start the command prompt.
In the command prompt window type ‘gpupdate /force’ and type ‘Y’ to accept that we need to logoff.
From the start menu type ‘event’ and click ‘Event Viewer’ to open the ‘Event Viewer’.
Within the ‘Application Log’ you will several (in my case 5) informational events telling me that the folder redirection was successful. Double click on such an event to view the details.
Here are the details of that event.
Open a command prompt and type ‘gpresult /h GPreport.html’. The GPReport.html is saved in your personal folder.
You see that the ‘Small Business Server Folder Redirection Policy’ is the winning GPO.