You just pay for the upgrade to Pro which you can do from within the OS.

This is against so many IT security best practices, you're probably breaking a regulation if you're in an industry not dealing with selling jewelry on Etsy.

While you're right, BYOD has been an on-going headache in IT for several years now. It's one thing to say unapproved devices are completely not allowed, but reality is when the CEO brings in their shiny new iPad and demands it get on the office wifi, the iPad gets onto the network (however heavily segmented and firewalled).

BYOD for mobile isn't entirely new, but most people doing that have MDM software that MITM's secure connections (potentially) and keeps all office-related software in a sandbox.

Attaching a desktop to an office network rarely has those same mechanisms.

Some devices include Windows 8.1 Pro, see for example the Surface Pro 3.

why would you take your home computer and connect it to the workplace?

You should Google up and see how common this problem really is. My example, I am a consultant. But I do have domain accounts in companies I consult. The OS that came with the machine (windows 7 home) had to be written over since it won't let me log in.

The point being, it's such an artificial restriction. Most PCs are laptops, and this really restricts mobility.

For clarity, are you talking about joining your laptop to the domain, or merely logging into domain accounts using a non-domain-joined laptop?

A remote desktop session into the my employer's network from guest wifi works fine within their building. My laptop running the rdp client is faster than the thin client they issued me with!

I think a consultant using their machine for work purposes can fork out for Windows Pro instead of using Home edition...

And where do you work that this is even allowed? Maybe it's only because I work for the Federal government, but there is not a snowball's chance in hell that I would be allowed to attach my personal machine to the non-guest network in any way.

I'm a developer and everywhere I've worked (small companies) I use my personal machine for work.

Further, would you even trust it on the guest network?

"why would you take your home computer and connect it to the workplace?"

- Blackberry

BYOD (bring your own device) is the big noise in corporate IT, has been for a while. Now, it started with iPhones and macs and iPads, but if your staff have, for example, a Surface Pro 3 they like to use, you want some way for them to be able to use it in the corporate network environment, right?

Now, I'd question whether the right way to handle that is to join it to the Windows domain (I'd question whether having a Windows domain is the right way to handle ANYTHING in fact), but it's definitely a part of the corporate IT landscape nowadays, and MS should have some sort of a story for how you can do it.

I do this all the time.