Best way to connect a MAC to Domain?

Hello All,

We have some MACS (osX?) that need to connect to shared drives that are
within a Windows Active Directory Domain.

Right now the ACTUAL PHYSICAL location (on the server) is:
C:\TheGroupUsers\ProjectFolders\PersonProject
The DEFINED SHARE is [TheGroupUsersSHARE]

On Windows Machines, I can set the login script to map to:
//TheServer/TheGroupUsersSHARE/ProjectFolders/PersonProject/JohnDoe

For MAC machines: it appears I have to make the 'JohnDoe' folder a SHARED
FOLDER on the server [JohnDoeShareForMAC] and then I can link directly to
that folder by going through: (Finder) - (Connect to From) -
(smb://ip/JohnDoeShareForMAC)

Problems:
(1) Why can't I specify a PATH to ultimatly connect to, from the MAC, as
opposed to having to share the END POINT destination folder, itself?
(2) This appears to disconnect quite often.
(3) Is there a better to to 'truly' link a MAC computer into an Active
Directory domain, as opposed to just mapping to a shared drive?

Thanks...

.