Microsoft® Windows Server 2003: Administrator’s Companion

Understanding Groups

By definition, groups in the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family are Active Directory directory service or local computer objects that can contain users, contacts, computers, or other groups. In general, though, a group is usually a collection of user accounts. The point of groups is to simplify administration by allowing the network administrator to assign rights and permissions to groups rather than individual users.

Windows Server 2003 allows two group types: security and distribution. Almost all groups used by Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server are security groups because they’re the only groups through which permissions can be assigned. Each security group is also assigned a group scope, which defines ...