Posted by arlene

These are the differences between these two types of groups:

• Security groups are used to manage user access and permissions. Users and other groups can be members of a security group.

• Distribution groups are used for functions such as grouping users for other purposes, such as email. These groups cannot be used to grant access to resources.

You can probably guess that after you fill in the basic information and click OK, the group is immediately created. In the example, a group was in the Users folder. Just as with User objects and Computer objects in the Active Directory, you can now bring up a properties page for the group and from there configure additional attributes for the group.

Right-click on the group and select Properties. You also can highlight the group and select Properties from the Action menu.

Here you can see fields that allow you to input a description of what the group is used for, as well as an email address that can be used to send email to members of the group. Additionally, you can put in notes about the group that might be helpful in the future. For example, you might create a group to be used only for a short period. You can put notes here to remind yourself to remove the group later.

Two other tabs relate to group membership. The first tab, Members, lists current members of the group. On this tab you can click the Add button to bring up a dialog box to use for adding other users or groups to the group. The Member Of tab displays groups of which this particular group itself is a member. You also can use the Add button on this property sheet tab to add the group to other groups.

Finally, the Managed By tab is similar to that discussed earlier, and is used to define a responsible contact person for this group.

Other Things You Can Do with the Active Directory Computers and Users Snap-In

This utility is not as simple as the User Manager for Domains that was included in previous versions of Windows NT. However, most of the additional functions for which you can use this utility don’t directly relate to user or computer management, so it’s not relatively important to go into the nitty- gritty details. For example, you can create organizational units and use them to further subdivide the objects managed in your domain.

There are other tools you’ll find in the Administrative Tools folder that again don’t relate directly to user or computer management, but you should be aware of them in case they are used at your site. Some of these utilities won’t show up in your Administrative Tools folder unless you’ve already installed the prerequisite software. For example, the DHCP manager MMC snap-in won’t be there if you haven’t installed a DHCP service on the server.

Some of the more popular tools include the following:

• Active Directory Domains and Trusts—This utility manages trust relationships. The User, Manager for Domains formerly handled that job.

• Component Services—This selection allows you to configure COM+ applications.

• Event Viewer—Use this standard utility to review the system, security, and application log

files. It’s similar to its Windows NT 4.0 predecessor but uses the MMC console instead.

• DHCP—This snap-in enables you to manage the DHCP service on the local server. If a user’s computer is having problems communicating on the network, you can check the DHCP logs to see whether the client has obtained a valid IP address.

• DNS—This snap-in will be present if the server is running the DNS service. This service is used by computers on the network to locate both domain controllers (for authentication purposes) and other resources on the network.

• Computer Management—Use this tool to manage services and other aspects of your server. You can defragment disk drives, see system information, and use the Event Viewer, among othe things.

• Distributed File System—This will show up if you’ve installed the Distributed File System.

• Internet Services Manager—IIS can be installed on Windows 2000/2003 servers. This tool can be used to manage the IIS services, as well as to set up printers for the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). You can also choose to install IIS later if you want to put it off until you have installed the operating system and then want to choose which servers to use for HS.

There are many other administrative tools you can use, from the Performance Monitor (and Network Monitor) to utilities used to manage Terminal Services. If you are using components that are not part of the default installation, be sure to examine the administrative tools to find an MMC snap-in utility for those components.

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