What is Offline Domain Join? How do you use it?

Offline domain join is a new process that computers that run Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 can use to join a domain without contacting a domain controller. This makes it possible to join computers to a domain in locations where there is no connectivity to a corporate network.

First the computer account is created or provisioned on the domain controller and the resulting information is stored in the metadata, and then this information is transferred to the joining computer. The workstation then performs the joining part without having the connectivity with the domain controller.

You need to use Djoin.exe on the domain controller to accomplish above. Please use Djoin.exe /? to see the syntaxes.

An example is given below:

Djoin.exe /provision /domain Name_Of_the_Domain_To_Be_Joined /machine Client_Computer_Name /savefile File_Name.txt