Win32 System Services: The Heart of Windows® 98 and Windows® 2000

5.1. The Possibilities

Traditionally, directory services have been tools for organizing, managing, and locating interesting objects in a computing system. "Interesting" objects are things users (and applications) need in order to do their jobs: printers, documents, e-mail addresses, databases, users, distributed components, and other resources.

In their simplest form, directory services are like the white pages of a telephone book. Using specific input (a person's name, for example), a user can receive specific output (a person's address and telephone number). Directory services also provide the functionality of the yellow pages. Using general input (e.g., "where are the printers?"), a user can receive a listing of printer resources that can ...