Policy) to all of the machines connected to the domain. Workgroups Windows Workgroups, by contrast, is the other model for grouping computers running Windows in a networking environment which ships with Windows. Workgroup computers are considered to be 'standalone' - i.e. there is no formal membership or authentication process formed by the workgroup. A workgroup does not have servers and clients, and hence represents the peer-to-peer (or client-to-client) networking paradigm, rather than the centralized architecture constituted by Server-Client. Workgroups are considered difficult to manage beyond a dozen clients, and lack single sign on, scalability, resilience/disaster recovery functionality, and many security features. Windows Workgroups are more suitable for small or home-office networks. See also Active Directory Security Accounts Manager (SAM) Notes Microsoft server technology Windows architecture Computer networking