The laptop buying trend doesn’t stop at home. Large corporations are also moving toward buying laptops for their employees. There is research out there that outlines productivity improvements with employees using laptops. This makes sense as most of these laptop-wielding employees bring their computers home and put in those extra email hours. However, most corporations require that their laptops be joined to a corporate domain. This enables system administrators to manage and maintain these computers. Domain-joined laptops are thus subject to more restrictions than regular home computers are. It’s hard to even locate another PC on the home network to access or share files, let along configure your domain-joined computer to print to a printer at home.
With HomeGroup, we wanted see if we could make things a little easier for these computers to come home. With more and more people working from home or having the option to these days, we wanted to see if they could enjoy some of the media content they have on the other PCs in the HomeGroup while they work. So in Windows 7, your domain-joined computer can join and participate in a HomeGroup. This enables the domain-joined computer to consume the media available on Windows 7 PCs in the home, watch TV through WMC, listen to music via WMP, or print to the printer on another HomeGroup PC all by entering the same key you provide to other computers in the HomeGroup.
The only difference is that sensitive content on the corporate laptop is never shared to the other HomeGroup computers. In essence, the domain-joined computer can see out (and consume) but no one can see in. We believe this meets the need for corporations to maintain security over documents while enabling our customers to enjoy a fun and interesting work environment at home, with access to all their media and home printers while they work. All you need is an existing HomeGroup, a domain-joined computer, and you can be rocking to your favorite tunes on your home network, while you catch up on all your important work.
Of course the ability to join a HomeGroup is a policy that can be managed by corporate domains as you would expect.
Create a HomeGroup with the Beta
Phew! I hope this post has given you some insight into some of our design decisions, as well as the capabilities of the feature. HomeGroup will highlight some of the cool capabilities Windows has had for a long time in a friendly and easy fashion and also build on some of the new plumbing and infrastructure in Windows 7, and we are very excited with its possibilities. It is important to note that none of this would be possible without the help of people around the world who have provided us with opportunities to listen to their feedback, observe their actions, and take note of their needs.
We know there will be lots of discussion around this feature once folks have had a chance to explore it. It represents a new model for something that has arguably been very difficult to set up and so for most people seeing all this work will be a first and for many of us reading this blog we’ll be “mapping” our existing model to this new experience. The best thing to do is just see if you can let Windows 7 run and do the work. After some use you can then dive into the customization and configuration available to you.
To set up a HomeGroup you will need to install Windows 7 Beta on more than one PC on the same network and be sure to select Home as the network location if you want to automatically create (or join) a HomeGroup.
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