Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 Administrator's Companion

Distribution Groups

In Active Directory, a group is a container of sorts that can hold users and other groups. You can assign permissions to a group that are inherited by all the objects that are members of that group. This makes the group a valuable security construct. Exchange Server 2007 also uses groups for another purpose. A group can be mail-enabled and then populated with other mail-enabled or mailbox recipients to make a distribution list—a term you might be familiar with from earlier versions of Exchange Server. A group can contain users, mail contacts, public folders, and even other distribution groups. When you send a message to a distribution group, the message is sent to each member of the list individually. Distribution groups are ...