RE: [ActiveDir] Active Directory Naming Question

[joe]

1. The domain name can be disjoint from the Exchange domain names handled. In fact, I have a joeware.local which handles mail for joeware.local, joeware.net, and joeware2.net. It could just as easily be hosting bob.com and steve.com email.   2. Yes it can. But don't go into a new domain thinking you will rename it. You should try to avoid the rename options. They can be involved.   3. Ah no. When you create your domain, if it isn't joined to a forest at that point, you are creating a new forest. You won't be joining any other forests later, if you need to be in another forest you will be migrating to a new domain in that forest. You need to sit down and chat with the Bus2 IT folks and DNS folks and network folks and get an idea of what the future holds if not everything worked out before you start spinning anything up that you want to have that isn't completely temporary.   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Edwin Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 11:01 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: [ActiveDir] Active Directory Naming Question Hello Everyone,   I was working for a business (Bus1) that was partially acquired by another (Bus2).  Bus1 has a corporate network and is reliant upon Active Directory to complete their daily activities.  Bus2 is dependant on Bus1’s current infrastructure for the time being.  This obviously needs to be changed immediately!   Now that I am with Bus2, I am trying to build a new domain.   I do not want to name the new domain based off of Bus2’s “REAL” name i.e. microsoft.com.  I want to name it something more generic, i.e. corporatedomain.ad.  My thinking behind this is because I want to prepare for another company acquisition should it ever happen.  If Bus3 buys Bus2, it is possible that they will not like the old domain name because it carries the “REAL”  name of the acquired Bus2.  But by having something more generic, I hope to avoid this problem.     With the above said, I have two questions:   Bus2 does not have licensing for MS Exchange.  Currently IMAP (yuck) is the mail solution.  I do not thing that IMAP will last long in our environment especially since we come from a MS Exchange environment with Bus1.  If in the event that MS Exchange is used at a future date within the Bus2 domain, will MS Exchange’s functionality or administration be affected? I am aware about the domain rename feature that is available with Windows 2003.  Regardless of the domain name used for the corporate network, can the domain rename tool be used when there exists a MS Exchange server?  Outside of unforeseen problems, is using this tool a general problem or something that should be avoided all together? Bus2 has several geographic areas.  A geographic domain setup is not established but I have already started the wheels spinning.  Who knows when anything real will come out of it?  Because of that, I will more specifically name the domain chicago.corporatedomain.ad in preparation for a new forest.  Then, all that would be needed is to add my existing domain to the newly created forest that Bus2 creates.  Will any of the above answers change now that a forest is being created?   Thank you all for your replies, Edwin