Greetings. I am in the process of migrating the desktop PCs on my network from Win9x to Win2K. After reading about Active Directory, there are features about it that I really would like to use (for administrator purposes, user/object management, etc) However, I have also read that unless I have a pure W2K environment, going with AD might prove to be a real headache in the longrun.

- forgot to finish the message! I have heard that Novell's NDS or OpenLDAP could be better alternative's for a multi-platform environment like mine. Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks.

Forgot to mention that I have Linux, Win2000, Win NT and Unix servers, to go along with a multiple Windows desktop environment.

It doesn't matter what network design you decide to go with, whether it be AD, NDS or whatever...you will always encounter problems and headaches. Most of these headaches, and I do stress most (not all), are caused by inexperienced admins that have no real knowledge setting up or designing a network environment. Simple things are overlooked, while other situations are assumed, and that is the root of most of these problems that are encountered. OS shortfalls are the low-end 5%-10% of the problem. Do your research first, and thouroughly, before you set up the network. Designed properly, you will not experience as many problems as the next admin. Cheers.

I'd suggest going with Active Directory if your desktop base is mostly newer (2000 & XP) Windows machines. With the Unix and Mac OS X machines you'll be able to authenticate to the Kereberos realm so that'll help include those. But the main point is what the above post mentions. PLAN IT OUT. I think planning is about 80% of the work, doing the actual implementation should be less work if everything is planned right....