We are a small Computer lab with 15 machines presently running XP in a workgroup. We would like to upgrade all of the machines to Windows 7 and use Server 2008 to manage the machines, as in group policy, pushing out Desktop Items and general manage of the workstations. Could some one advise on their opinion of which foundation to use to preform the above task?

As you want to implement both in windows environment, it is better to get centralized, come into domain network, you can maintain best network through it..... You can start with client operating system with Windows XP also, and server will be either 2003 or 2008....

Thanks but what I need to know is which Server 2008 to use as in Foundation, enterprise, Standard. From what I have read it looks like Standard might be right. We will have aprox. 26 accounts with 15 machines. I what to make sure I am reading this right. it looks like Foundation won't work because of the number of user,am I correct?

Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation Edition supports up to 15 max concurrent users accessing the Server. So it will work just fine. Please note though, it doesn't support all the features of Active Directory. Windows Server 2008 R2: Foundation Introduction to Windows Server 2008 Foundation Teching It Easy: With Windows |ActiveWin | Notebooks | Microsoft MVP

Hi Thanks for posting here. After reading you post, I’d also strongly recommend you to take look windows small business server solution , it should completely meet your requirement . Please visit small business serve web site to acquire more information: Windows small business server 2008 http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/default.aspx Thanks. Tiger Li

This might not be the correct place to ask this but here goes. I have installed Server 2008 standard eval. The Install went fine and I thought I configured it correctly. but when I try to join a windows 7 machine to the named domain I can not connect. Where can I find installation instructions so I can go over and find out where I went worng? Thanks Tom

Hi Tom, Thanks for update. So the issue is the client fail join domain after domain system created. If in this scenario , what’s the system prompt on client computer ? and if the connectivity and name resolution of domain controller and client computer working correctly ,please post the “ipconfig /all” result of both computers here for future investigation. Usually , incorrect name resolution will be the root cause of domain join issue: Troubleshooting Failure to Locate Domain Controller when Attempting to Join a Domain http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727055.aspx#EAAA Thanks. Tiger LiPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Ok I went with Windows 7 on all machines and created a local workgroup for all machines everyone is talking to each other. What I need now is to know if there is a way once I configure a group policy on one machine to copy it to all the others instead of creating each one? Again Thanks for all the help we are looking into getting our own DSL connection and then set up our own DNS and DHCP, but untill then this will work. Thanks Tom