Active Directory, recommended (book) reading?

I am in the process of moving my network over to a Windows 2003 Active Directory. So far I like what I see a lot. The part of the system that is most new to me is active directory. Anyone, any suggestions for books or references on AD?

 

Thank you Steve. Nice overviews. However, I come from a Novell background so am familiar with domain forests and tree structures. Perhaps I should have been more specific:

What I am most in need of is information on how to get information in and out of the Active Directory. LDAP looks to be the key.

For example, I've got Outlook 2000 to query the AD for e-mail address checks, but would like a way to provide a list of users with details. ASP page on the intranet would do the job.

I've found O'Reilly's "Active Directory Cookbook " which seems to be close to what I'm looking for. However, I'd be interested if anyone could suggest some other books before I buy.

 

By the way - I bought the O'Reilly book. Splendid. Gave me just the information I needed to link into AD from our intranet to provide live phone/email listings and the tools to allow our admin to update the numbers.

 

Reggie,
What is the current network config?
Peer to Peer?
What are the client machines?
How many?

 

Main site Client/server - 2003 AD, 25 clients (plus some development and training PC that come on and off the network. XP/2000/win98 (even the odd win95) OS.

Second site Client/server - 2000 server, half a dozen clients.

Third site three clients - windows and linux.

Why do you ask?

 

Reggie,
My old mind has failed me. I cant remember what I had in mind when I asked.

Are you going to be joining people to a domain that are currently logging on to a local machine?
If so I have found a nice tool to merge their local profile to their domain profile so their documents, IE settings, desktop settings, basically everything stays the same.

It's called Profile Wizzard and it's awsome. http://www.forensit.com/

 

Yes and no. I had an NT4 domain and a Novel 5.1 NDS.

User profiles was an issue. On the XP machines I used the "File and Settings Transfer Wizard" to transfer the profiles - Logged on in old profile, told the wizard this was the "old" computer and saved the transfer profile to a local folder. Then logged on as the new user and told the wizard the pc was the "new" computer and pointed the wizard at the local folder. Straight forward - worked a treat. Only a couple of minor glitches (such as Outlook Contact folders not being set as "Outlook Address Books ").

On 2000 and NT4 computers used the transfer profile option in computer properties. However, if they were logged onto the domain, I had to first copy the profile to a local profile and then log on as the new domain user and transfer the profile from the local user.

I wish that you could select a profile when you set up a new user - that is that there was some way of pointing a new user at their old profile. However, I can't see that working due to the way the registry and permissions are set up.

I know I could have transferred the NT domain over to the new system, but I wanted to take the opportunity to wipe the slate clean: standadise usernames, enforce passwords etc. It's a small network so it wasn't too difficult to set up new users. Also we don't use roaming profiles.

 

Look at the profile wizzard I posted a link to. Read the instructions which are fairly brief. Works very well. Takes about 15 seconds to copy a profile.

 

Thats the tool you're meant to tell me about before I transfer everyone to the new domain not after !

Look like a goodie. I've bookmarked and will no doubt find myself needing it at some point in the future. Thanks ssmith10pn