Well..not completely but I am finally understanding most of it!!  I pretty much have groups, GPO's, Domains and Trusts figured out!!

Pretty soon I expect my head to explode!! [BD] [BD]

Sgtar15

AD is easy sleazy.

GPO's can get very complicated....  wait till you really have to design an AD for a large client... that's when the fear and self-doubt sets in!

Tell us the secret!

20 hours of study and hands on for 3 months...works every time[:D]

sgtar15

Congrats. It's a throwback to Novell Directory Services.

Old Novell dustballs love to say that.  

It take NDS tree so far to the next level, it isn't even comparable....

I just sat thru a week of Active directory.

I'm on my way to a MCSE, but it's a painful road. I was a hardcore Novell fan (NW 4 + 5 CNA, NW 5 CNE), but Novell is dying on the vine.

AD is just like NDS with a different naming scheme. And NDS is easier to use.

It's all a pain in the ass.

Av.

One thing to remember about designing an AD...

DON'T LET MANAGEMENT SEE THE DESIGN!!

Remember, AD is for the techs, and only the techs. It is really ment for rolling out GPO's. Starting from the least restrictive, down to the most restrictive (in the outer branches).

Once management takes a look at a good AD tree, they just say "That isn't how the company is laid out!! Change it!" Once you make the change to how the company is laid out, your life will be a living hell from that day on. Trying to update policies, permissions, etc. You will end up breaking something down the tree that you will regret.

So just keep in you mind of laying out OU's that they don't need to match the companies hierarchy. Think about the machines and what they do, it might overlap and match the companies layout (smile when that happens), but keep it as simple as you can.

Guzzler, this is EXACTLY the problem with our NDS tree.

We had the same problem with our NDS tree. I was promoted into my position a few years ago, and have slowly making changes to the tree.

If a user logs in, they might not see a difference, and that's what I want!! I just keep showing everyone snapshots of the new tree... with a bit of Photoshop magic so it looks like it never changed.

Av.

No big secret really.  If you understand MS File Directory you can understand Active Directory.

Example:

From your C: Drive you create a folder, then from that folder, you can create subfolders.

Same thing in Active Directory, imagine that your C: Drive is a tree, then your folder is a Container, then there are sub-containers.  You give them users rights the same way as you give them users rights to your drive and folders (providing that you have the Admin right of the entire tree).

Plus your C: drive or tree and your D: drive or tree can become a forest in an Active Directory.

Hehehe, yep. Fortunately I didn't have to design the AD for the company that I worked for. But I did get to see the fall out. Three years and they are just finally implimenting it.

One sad point... I was asked to give my comments about the AD in the beginning at the company. Unforturnately, I wasn't educated enough about AD and NDS at the time, so I made things worse with my comments.

But after studying I saw the error of my ways. I tried to correct things, but it stuck, and I left.

Edited: Because I can't keep my past and present terms right.

It's kind of like finally figuring out how the lower parts kit goes together in an stripped AR15 that you are building.....and then again it aint nothing like that!!!

Sgtar15

DUSTBALLS?!?!? DUSTBALLS?!?!?

Listen you whipper snapper.... I wrote the code that generated you. Ever hear of punch cards?

Well I never had those but my my diskettes were 8" square. A 20MB hard drive was the size of a washing machine and cost $5 million. I was Novell Enterprise Cert. in 1986... back when SQL was still a proposed standard. I fart in assembly code.

Nowtherefore, AD is indeed the bomb and torches NDS.