The Complete Guide to Windows Server 2008

Chapter 10. Active Directory Domain Services Introduction

Active Directory (AD) is often used the same way the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) domains were used: to perform authentication for users and authorization to access resources and not much else. Many of the features that AD has as a full-fledged directory service are not used. In the next few chapters, you look at what AD enables and how to best implement and use it. But let's start at the beginning.

Workgroups Versus Domains

Windows for Workgroups was the first version of Windows that introduced a portioning scheme called a workgroup to the peer-to-peer type networking concept. This enabled the sharing of files and printers over the network. Sharing was not granular; you had two options: ...