Yesterday I asked whether it was possible to have a win2000 server act as a domain controller through one network card and a normal network PC through another network card - and had the resounding answer of no. One answer was to dual boot, but that is not an option. So today I would like to ask what my options are. The system consists of a server and two PCs that require a domain to be present - due to our proprietary software. External to this we need to connect the server to the corporate LAN so that the database running on our server can be queried remotely. The server has two network cards in it, but it is not absolutely necessary to use both. The corporate network may be running more than just win2000 servers. If it is just a win2000 network, I expect we can join their forest - somehow. We want the network connections to our two client PCs to be as quiet as possible - hence the reason we bought two network cards for the server. Is there a difference between a primary domain controller and a domain controller ? If our server acts as a primary domain controller - what does the corporate network administrator need to know ? Thanks for any suggestions. Phil.

The Primary Domain Controller is used on windows NT Server. With Win2000, is Domain Controller (DC). If you install Win2000 Server, you need to run DCPROMO to create a DC... Is very usefull if you know how to configure the DC and the DNS... The question of the 2 network adapter's, I never try :(

Ok, from what I'm reading it looks like you have one 2000 AD domain and you wish to connect it to another. You can do this! Basically, all you have to do is create a trust between the two domains. I've done this from one 2000 domain to another as well as from a 2000 domain to an NT domain. As always, trust's can be a pain in the butt...which is why I like 2000 so much...it does away with the need for so many in an enterprise environment. The biggest difference between an NT PDC and a 2000 DC is that the 2000 DC's employ 'multimaster replication'. If you want a more in-depth explanation of that, and the differences, go to microsoft's web site and do some reading, all the info you want (and more) is there. The important thing you need to know is, you can do what you're asking.

Why don't you just set your server up to be a member server? In this way you don't have the overhead of being a domain controller but it is still joined to a domain so your software should work. You can service any users that need to access your resources in this configuration. The only traffic you'll encounter from this configuration is from your two computers that access the server regularly and any requests to access the shared database.

Hmmmmm...This all can be done, but, isn't all the computers already joined on the network...And you want this one server and two clients to be connected as well...? And you don't want any interference from any other traffic on the lan...There probably is a way, but, you'll probably make more headache than it's worth...Your pc's already have user accounts, so they have to be logged in as what they were given...Even if those two pc's are not members of the domain, your server can still be tracked...Sounds to me like you want your own little community...If it's an NT and 2000 domain, you have to trust one another...Go into both servers and grant a trust...If it's all 2000 dc's, the trust is already there...I don't know man, you should set up three more machines...and have your own little community and let your admin crap you out for eating bandwith...