First off, I want to explain to you that I’m not dead. I’ve just been very busy starting high school and everything. My high school is a magnet high school basically meaning that it focuses on a certain career. I bet you will guess mine real quick. It’s called “Business Careers High School”. It is basically another school on the same campus as another school (Although we have buildings dedicated to our school, oh and we all get laptops to use for school, haha.). There are four other magnet schools; Communication Arts, Science Academy, Health Careers (They get their own campus though), and Construction Careers. All of the magnet schools still do regular courses, but also have those special classes. I have this year a class for Principles of Business-Marketing and Finance, and a Principles of Information Technology class, along with my regular classes. All the high schools still start and end at the same time as the regular high schools but….. well never mind. I’m rambling. Basically, I’m trying to explain that I’ve been very busy, and I’m sorry.
On to the post! So since the beginning of the school year I’ve been testing Active Directory. Active Directory is a central management system for Windows. Its a role on top of Windows Server (I’m in the DreamSpark program so I got Windows Server 2008 R2 for free). Basically, its a big database (or directory) with user accounts, configuration info, and other information. The structure is like this:
Forest
Tree
Domain
Organization Unit
Its hierarchical based. (Thats why I have the spacing The spacing won’t work -_-) You have a forest which is the main “company” so if you’re company is named “Contoso” then you would have a “Contoso” Forest. (Now I’m not saying AD can’t be used for home use…. I use it for my home). Then you would have a Eastern Tree if you’re in different parts of the US. Then in the Eastern Tree you can have the Dallas or Boston Domain. Now the next one is Organizational Units. Those are optional, but they can make things a lot easier. They’re like groups for your users. You can have a Teachers OU and a Student OU. Now there you go, you should now know a little bit about Active Directory.
The Good things about Active Directory:
Central Accounts: Everyone gets one username and password. If someone forgets their password, a Domain Admin will reset it, and BAM! It works again. If you happen to accidently turn on the “Account Locked” flag by accident….. never mind.
Group Policy: Now this is the main thing about Active Directory, so I will break it up.
Group Policy Rules: This defines what things can be done and can’t be done with certain windows components and software
Software Installation: If you have the MSI for a piece of software, you can set it so all the computers install it at next boot (Just make sure all your computers don’t start at the same time, you might get some over load then)
I don’t want to give all the possibilities, I want you to find them! 
The Bad:
Well, just remember that every computer relies on those configs (Like User Accounts, Group Policy Rules), if you mess something up, it will affect everyone.
Hope you had a good read!!
-Russell
P.S. There are ways for Linux and Mac to join your Active Directory Domain too!
I will never forget him, and he will always be in my heart!
