Understanding Windows Domains

After you have successfully installed the networking protocols, clients and services, then it is time to look into becoming part of a domain or the Active Directory. Domains are a collection of computers that share a common security database. Thus domains present a security boundary.

The domain concept was developed by Microsoft early in the development of Windows NT to allow for a single logon for each user. In earlier networking models, such as Windows for Workgroups, accessing resources on other computers required that you remember a username and password stored on each of the other computers with which you needed to exchange data. This share level of access still exists in Windows XP, but with the NT file system ...

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