I didn’t know that this was even possible! I’m setting up a new laptop whose primary user account is also a domain account. I joined the laptop to the domain while at the office, but forgot to log in as the user and hence the user profile had not been created and the login credintials hadn’t been cached.  I needed to install software on the laptop and make it generally ready for use, but I needed the user account ready before then. What to do?

I came across an article in Tech Republic that provided the solution: Joining domain during Windows logon using VPN. Perfect! I got the user account created the logon credintials cached, and subsequently the software installed and the desktop made ready for the user!