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Anybody who has ever administered Windows PCs professionally at work should know what it means. I would not expect home users to know or care.

yawaramin 7y ago
I have used Windows PCs at work extensively. I had no idea that 'Domain join' could mean 'create an offline account'.
- amaccuish 7y ago
  > I had no idea that 'Domain join' could mean 'create an offline account'. It doesn't. It means, or at least it should, join the PC to a Active Directory/NT4 domain.
- klodolph 7y ago
  “Administered”. I’m not talking about local admin rights, I’m talking about the people in your IT department who administer a fleet of Windows PCs. It doesn’t normally mean “create offline account”, but domain accounts are not the same as Microsoft accounts, and domain accounts are a normal part of enterprise deployments. So it does normally mean that you can create a non-Microsoft account. Yes, it’s stupid. Not defending it, just trying to explain what “join domain” means.
Silhouette 7y ago
Not everyone running Windows PCs at work is in an enterprise environment with in-house IT specialists. Remember, most businesses are small businesses.
- klodolph 7y ago
  “Administered”. If you don’t have IT specialists you don’t have people administering your PCs professionally. I’m not talking about people who happen to use Windows in a professional setting. I’m talking specifically about people whose main job responsibilities include Windows administration.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    If you don’t have IT specialists you don’t have people administering your PCs professionally. Given that your stated alternative was home users, you seem to have excluded just about the entire world of small businesses with that definition. They might not have dedicated IT staff, but they still need to be able to administer their systems and in many cases a designated person will still be responsible for doing so. They just need to be able to do that as well as fulfilling whatever obligations they have in their primary role. Issues like privacy and security apply just as much in this context as in a large enterprise deployment with a whole department of dedicated staff to run it, but they need simple, transparent mechanisms for setting up the office network, deploying updates to the OS and installed software, etc.
    - klodolph 7y ago
      I am answering the question, > Is there anyone that even knows what "Domain join" means? And the answer is, “IT specialists supporting Windows in corporate environments.” Generally speaking. I honestly cannot understand the motive or purpose for the rest of your comment, which seems to be about the needs of small businesses, which is not germane. > Given that your stated alternative was home users, you seem to have excluded just about the entire world of small businesses with that definition. Right, because I am specifically talking about IT specialists, who “administer Windows professionally”. This is the usual definition of “professionally”, that you “profess” to do something. If I talk about people who “write professionally”, this also does not include people who happen to write emails, memos, and other ordinary correspondence at work. But this doesn’t really exclude small business, since it’s common for small businesses (and medium) to contract IT services.
      - Silhouette 7y ago
        Ah, sorry, it seems I misinterpreted your original comment. I thought you were defending Microsoft's decision to hide creation of a local account behind the deceptive button name, on the basis that those who were setting these PCs up in a business environment would know what it meant anyway.
anoncake 7y ago
> I would not expect home users to know That's why MS renamed the button. > or care They do, else MS would not need those dark patterns.
- klodolph 7y ago
  > They do, else MS would not need those dark patterns. No, typical end users do not care what “domain join” means. They only care about creating offline accounts. “Domain join” isn’t supposed to mean “create offline account”, it’s supposed to let you join the computer to an AD domain. Or at least, that’s what I’d expect.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    End users don't care about the expected meaning of "domain join", right. But they do care about the meaning MS uses here.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Users don't care about "offline account" either. (What does that mean to a user, they can't access the internet any more?) Same with the previous term before that, "local account", had no meaning to most "typical" end users for about the same reason. Some of this I guess is semi-intentional dark patterns [1], but it's also a complex space where explaining the trade-offs to "typical" end users would involve a ton of wasted space and increasingly local/offline accounts aren't what a "typical" end user wants, because they aren't an IT Admin and don't understand the trade-offs and probably don't care to. Given no one seems to have a good name for them other than "offline accounts" or "local accounts", which would imply "can't connect to the internet" to "typical" end users, it's hard not to feel that it really probably is a Power User feature and it's as much an unintentional dark pattern simply because we don't have a good name for it and no one wants to explain the trade-offs to "typical" end users. [1] Though I'm more willing than most to ascribe at least some good intentions to it: settings synchronization is more useful to typical end users than local sandboxes and devices that don't roam basic settings. The ability to recover logging into a device when a user forgets a password is also a huge necessary deal in 2019 because passwords are broken and typical end users have far too many of them. Microsoft also wants to kill the password as a thing in lieu of other factors. Getting end users out of daily password input would be good for us an industry. (Yes, yes, I know the next three commenters will complain that it's all just for telemetry and surveillance, and I understand where y'all are coming from, but you are also not-quite-correct and it's a debate I'm tired of. Windows 10 has been increasingly better at allowing you to explore all of its telemetry collection and better with each update at providing tools for opting out of individual telemetry. Windows 10 and macOS/iOS are at the same levels of telemetry collection and accountability of such today. The telemetry debate is increasingly not productive nor interesting in the comments on HN and elsewhere.)

yawaramin 7y ago

I have used Windows PCs at work extensively. I had no idea that 'Domain join' could mean 'create an offline account'.

amaccuish 7y ago
> I had no idea that 'Domain join' could mean 'create an offline account'. It doesn't. It means, or at least it should, join the PC to a Active Directory/NT4 domain.
klodolph 7y ago
“Administered”. I’m not talking about local admin rights, I’m talking about the people in your IT department who administer a fleet of Windows PCs. It doesn’t normally mean “create offline account”, but domain accounts are not the same as Microsoft accounts, and domain accounts are a normal part of enterprise deployments. So it does normally mean that you can create a non-Microsoft account. Yes, it’s stupid. Not defending it, just trying to explain what “join domain” means.

Silhouette 7y ago

Not everyone running Windows PCs at work is in an enterprise environment with in-house IT specialists. Remember, most businesses are small businesses.

klodolph 7y ago
“Administered”. If you don’t have IT specialists you don’t have people administering your PCs professionally. I’m not talking about people who happen to use Windows in a professional setting. I’m talking specifically about people whose main job responsibilities include Windows administration.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  If you don’t have IT specialists you don’t have people administering your PCs professionally. Given that your stated alternative was home users, you seem to have excluded just about the entire world of small businesses with that definition. They might not have dedicated IT staff, but they still need to be able to administer their systems and in many cases a designated person will still be responsible for doing so. They just need to be able to do that as well as fulfilling whatever obligations they have in their primary role. Issues like privacy and security apply just as much in this context as in a large enterprise deployment with a whole department of dedicated staff to run it, but they need simple, transparent mechanisms for setting up the office network, deploying updates to the OS and installed software, etc.
  - klodolph 7y ago
    I am answering the question, > Is there anyone that even knows what "Domain join" means? And the answer is, “IT specialists supporting Windows in corporate environments.” Generally speaking. I honestly cannot understand the motive or purpose for the rest of your comment, which seems to be about the needs of small businesses, which is not germane. > Given that your stated alternative was home users, you seem to have excluded just about the entire world of small businesses with that definition. Right, because I am specifically talking about IT specialists, who “administer Windows professionally”. This is the usual definition of “professionally”, that you “profess” to do something. If I talk about people who “write professionally”, this also does not include people who happen to write emails, memos, and other ordinary correspondence at work. But this doesn’t really exclude small business, since it’s common for small businesses (and medium) to contract IT services.
    - Silhouette 7y ago
      Ah, sorry, it seems I misinterpreted your original comment. I thought you were defending Microsoft's decision to hide creation of a local account behind the deceptive button name, on the basis that those who were setting these PCs up in a business environment would know what it meant anyway.

anoncake 7y ago

> I would not expect home users to know That's why MS renamed the button. > or care They do, else MS would not need those dark patterns.

klodolph 7y ago
> They do, else MS would not need those dark patterns. No, typical end users do not care what “domain join” means. They only care about creating offline accounts. “Domain join” isn’t supposed to mean “create offline account”, it’s supposed to let you join the computer to an AD domain. Or at least, that’s what I’d expect.
- anoncake 7y ago
  End users don't care about the expected meaning of "domain join", right. But they do care about the meaning MS uses here.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Users don't care about "offline account" either. (What does that mean to a user, they can't access the internet any more?) Same with the previous term before that, "local account", had no meaning to most "typical" end users for about the same reason. Some of this I guess is semi-intentional dark patterns [1], but it's also a complex space where explaining the trade-offs to "typical" end users would involve a ton of wasted space and increasingly local/offline accounts aren't what a "typical" end user wants, because they aren't an IT Admin and don't understand the trade-offs and probably don't care to. Given no one seems to have a good name for them other than "offline accounts" or "local accounts", which would imply "can't connect to the internet" to "typical" end users, it's hard not to feel that it really probably is a Power User feature and it's as much an unintentional dark pattern simply because we don't have a good name for it and no one wants to explain the trade-offs to "typical" end users. [1] Though I'm more willing than most to ascribe at least some good intentions to it: settings synchronization is more useful to typical end users than local sandboxes and devices that don't roam basic settings. The ability to recover logging into a device when a user forgets a password is also a huge necessary deal in 2019 because passwords are broken and typical end users have far too many of them. Microsoft also wants to kill the password as a thing in lieu of other factors. Getting end users out of daily password input would be good for us an industry. (Yes, yes, I know the next three commenters will complain that it's all just for telemetry and surveillance, and I understand where y'all are coming from, but you are also not-quite-correct and it's a debate I'm tired of. Windows 10 has been increasingly better at allowing you to explore all of its telemetry collection and better with each update at providing tools for opting out of individual telemetry. Windows 10 and macOS/iOS are at the same levels of telemetry collection and accountability of such today. The telemetry debate is increasingly not productive nor interesting in the comments on HN and elsewhere.)