http://www.tinkertry.com/how-to-make-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-client-connector-install-behave-just-like-windows-home-server/

Connect to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials without affecting your DNS, staying in workgroup mode

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When you install the R2 connector for daily backups, if you’d rather it skip the domain join (staying in a workgroup), AND not have it not monkey with your all your NIC’s DNS settings (including Hamachi, VMware, etc), then this article is for you! The connector install is now incredibly fast on Windows 8.1, a vast improvement over all previous client connector installs. See for yourself, in the video I created below.

I’ve been wanting to get around to making the move from Windows Server 2012 Essentials (with Update Rollup 3) over to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. But R2 has no Update Rollups yet. Remember those nifty Microsoft-documented tweaks for DNS that I like to think I had a little something to do with? They don’t work under R2. Even worse, that Windows Server LAN Configuration service is gone too. So I found myself in a bit of a pickle. How to make R2 behave more like its predecessors, so I could make the move?

Another hurtle is that R2 Essentials users face a rebuild from scratch anyway. Yes, you heard that right, there is no upgrade path to R2 from Windows Server 2012 Essentials, explained here. So when an issue arose with my faithful daily backup methods these past 10 months, I was facing reconfiguring my daily PC backups for 14 machines, with 5TB of daily backups to re-seed. This became strong motivation to stop fiddling with the old, and start over with the new R2. I figured I’d much rather build from scratch, while keeping my 3TB network share drive intact, just as I’ve been doing with all prior upgrades to.

For some reason, I thought it might not be too hard to figure out what Microsoft is doing with the registry keys.

So first, I simply followed the tweaks listed the Microsoft-documented tweaks for 2012 Essentials, just for grins, to see if they’d happen to work on 2012 R2 Essentials. No joy, client DNS messed up.

So I dove in deeper. Tried a few things with a bunch of Windows 8.1 builds and connector install methods. And before long, there it was, that wonderful eureka moment of discovery, obtained when tinkering with a purpose, persistently, patiently. It’s actually fun.

This one tweak to the registry, at the right spot in the install, was all I needed to get everything working just like I wanted, with:

• domain join skipped (staying in workgroup mode), makes for a super-fast install
• DNS unaltered for client (leaves DHCP in auto, so DHCP feeds it, rather than hard-coded DNS IP of the R2 Essentials server)
• simple, with no services to mess with
• no need to clean-up numerous NICs you may have (Hamachi, VMware, VPN, etc, where you don’t want DNS altered)
• doubtful this would somehow hurt or affect any future rollups in any way

Here’s the actual procedure:

0) Uninstall any prior versions (Windows Home Server, Windows Home Server 2011, Windows Server 2012 Essentials), then reboot, before you proceed with step 1

1) Follow Microsoft’s recommended way to avoid domain join (leaving your network in Workgroup) by copying the following line into your clipboard:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Server\ClientDeployment" /v SkipDomainJoin /t REG_DWORD /d 1

2) Press Win+x, choose ‘Command Prompt (Admin)’

3) Right-click on the Command Prompt window, choose Paste

4) Press enter, and the registry change is then automatically made, you can close this window

5) Kick off the connector install with the usual URL:

http://servername/connect

or, if you’re on a remote network, it’s

https://servername.remotewebaccess.com/connect

6) Go through the install, and stop at the point where it asks you for credentials

7) Next, Run regedit.exe, then head to this key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Server\Networking\ServerDiscovery

then change “SkipAutoDNSServerDetection” from False to True.

8) Enter the credentials, and the connector install will continue

Yep, that’s really all you got to do, no reboot required!

The first backup will start automatically if you’re within your backup window (time of day), and finished up in just 2 minutes in my case (SATA3 SSD to SATA3 SSD, fresh Windows 8.1 Pro build, no other backups on the server yet).

I know folks have been clamoring for this fix for many weeks now. Thanks for your patience. Enjoy!