<< Sounds like I need Pro then to get a good domain join. I've heard that you can get the "deal" laptop with Home and then pay an upgrade fee to go to Professional from there. >>
While you do need Pro to join a domain, you can access shares on clients networks with regular Home. You'll be prompted for a network login when you try to access the disk. I find this more than satisfactory for me and, in fact, superior to joining a domain since I actually need to attach to lots of different networks. -- Larry
