Re: Active Directory Domain Name

From: Mike Brannigan [MSFT] (mikebran_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 01:09:16 +0100

Your domain has two names - the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) "active
.com" and the down-level compatible NetBIOS domain name "Active"

So to answer your questions
> Question 1: Will this ability to reference the domain
> either as Active or Active.com go away when move to
> native mode?
>

No.

> Question 2: If yes to Question 1, what does that mean
> for PCs that were added to "Active" as opposed to having
> typed "Active.com" when joining the domain?
>

nothing - you can use either to join the domain - they just use different
mechanisms and protocols to find the domain controllers to talk to . FQDN
uses SRV records from DNS and NetBIOS will use WINS or broadcasts etc.

> Question 3: What is the difference between "Active"
> and "Active.com"?

they are different names for the same thing. they use different location
protocols and processes, they are for new and backward compatibility of
clients and applications.

This is all documented in the various guides whitepapers and technical
documentation about active directory at www.microsoft.com 

-- 
Regards,
Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights
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"Ana" <bean@news.postalias> wrote in message
news:2954a01c46541$b907eb00$a501280a@phx.gbl...
> We upgraded our NT 4.0 domain to Active Directory, and we
> are currently running in mixed mode.  When we upgraded to
> active directory, our domain name went from "Active"
> to "Active.com".  We have added some PCs to the domain,
> and it seems that we reference either "Active"
> or "Active.com" when we select our domain during the
> domain join process.
>
> Question 1:  Will this ability to reference the domain
> either as Active or Active.com go away when move to
> native mode?
>
> Question 2:  If yes to Question 1, what does that mean
> for PCs that were added to "Active" as opposed to having
> typed "Active.com" when joining the domain?
>
> Question 3:  What is the difference between "Active"
> and "Active.com"?
>
> Thank you.
>
>