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

5.5. Conclusion

With the release of Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server, Microsoft now offers an integrated solution to directory services via Active Directory services. The Microsoft solution provides tools to allow use of Active Directory for managing networks. Storing network resources in Active Directory lets you manage them across the enterprise. This is perfect for system administrators and engineers, but developers need a solution geared toward specific data-storage problems. In Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft changed the way network domains are handled. Windows NT 4.0 used Primary Domain Controllers (PDCs) and Backup Domain Controllers (BDCs). The domain system information (users, groups, permissions, and so on) could only be changed ...