This relates to another tag from earlier this month.

Windows 2000 server is finally installed and I'm in the beginning stage of designing Active Directory (LAB). Being that this is my first time doing this alone what is the most simplist way of designing the forest? This is a lab, so testing and mistakes is fine.

What type of set up would you guys do for this lab with this size of a company.

In our company, we have 1 server (AS400) with 50+ XP users.

It depends on what you wish to do. If you want multiple domains in a single forest, then get out some scratch paper and diagram it out.

If you're talking about a single domain within the forest then it's pretty basic and simple. Begin by planning your domain name and the install the server and promote it to a DC. Allow AD to configure DNS during the promotion and ensure you have a static IP assigned to the server before you begin the promotion.

Get one of the technet training courses or one of the mcse training for AD and go thru its execises.

Singe domain for you should be just right.

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Thanks Curt-
I planned on making this as simple as possible so I'll go with the single domain.

Because I'm only getting 1 DC, where would you configure the DNS to? It would make sense to have it on the windows server or is it possible to have that on the AS400?

As for AD users and groups would this be how you would do it for the most simpliest way. This is somewhat what I thought of to be the easiest.

Example:
Organization Unit: Acounts
In the Accounts OU I'll have: Marketing, HR, Office, Production, Finance, IT.
In each OU I'll create my users.

If there is an easier way, please comment. Thanks.

MS has to have its own dns server.
OU design is a course unto itself.
Start simple then go complicated. Your OU design is too complicated to start. Think GPO implementation.

You are running blind rsn000. Get that boss of yours to fork out the money for a MCSE book training course.

http://www.amazon.com/MCSE-Self-Pac...

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Wanderer is right. AD is not something you should be thrown into with out proper training or someone to walk you through it.

For the DNS question you asked:
If you have 2 DC's then configure the primary DNS server for DC1 to DC1's IP and secondary DNS server to your DC2's IP address. For DC2, set the primary DNS server to its own IP, and the secondary DNS server to DC1's IP. If this is a corporate environment, you will want at least 2 DC's so you can implement multi-master replication.

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