Introducing a mac pc to Win 2003 domain

Someone has just come up to me and said that he is thinking of buying some MAC pc to use at work and these are going to be required to join the domain. We currently use windows 2003 server and all the computers are XP. My main concern is, are we not going to have any issues in 1.regards to joining the mac to the domain
2.file and printer sharing
3. authentication issues to access softwares
4. Are we going to need to make any changes to current network.
Probably there is a lot more we might need to consider and I need to know all the things that we might need to be prepared to face and see if its feasible to have the MACs purchased otherwise they might need to find an alternative to their solve their problems.

The main reason they need the MACs was due to colours showing differently from pc to pc and they think the MACs might solve the problem.

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Comments

sthomas

Check out this site for some really good info on Mac and Windows Server 2003 integration.

http://www.macwindows.com/index.html#614c

I know you can access resources from a Domain on Mac OS X. I am pretty sure that Mac OS X will not integrate nearly as well as Windows XP/Vista to a domain. You may be able to get it to work correctly but it will give you a lot of headache. If it where me I would tell the person if they bring their Mac into the network the won't be guaranteed to access all necessary resources on the network.

pwjohnston

mishy wrote:

The main reason they need the MACs was due to colours showing differently from pc to pc and they think the MACs might solve the problem.

That sounds more like a monitor issue to me. Many of my Graphic Design friends swear by old CRT's over LCD for true to print colour. Depending if they are using Photoshop, I don't know about Quark, I do remember they had specific drivers for many types of monitor out there.

d4nmf

sthomas wrote:

Check out this site for some really good info on Mac and Windows Server 2003 integration.

http://www.macwindows.com/index.html#614c

I know you can access resources from a Domain on Mac OS X. I am pretty sure that Mac OS X will not integrate nearly as well as Windows XP/Vista to a domain. You may be able to get it to work correctly but it will give you a lot of headache. If it where me I would tell the person if they bring their Mac into the network the won't be guaranteed to access all necessary resources on the network.

HIJACK..

Nice link mate, will need a read over that for future things for myself

..END OF HIJACK

hypnotoad

We have Macs on our 2003 domain. It kind of sucks. We used Directory Access (in Utilities) to bind the macs. They get an AD account just like normal windows PCs, and from then on only windows + the local mac administrator can log on to it.

The challenege now is bringing some of our group policies over to the Mac realm (i.e. folder redirection, printer mappings).

We have difficulty because sometimes, for no good reason, the Macs unbind themselves. Also, I think Mail.App and Entourage both suck when compared to the integration you get between Outlook and Exchange.

mishy

Judging from everybodys response I think the department should forget about getting the MACs otherwise they will have to use it as a standalone pc and we might have to rely on virtual pc to let them have access to the domain, but I dont think the work involved in doing that is worth it.

astorrs

Have a look at Spyder3 from Datacolor (formerly ColorVision) http://spyder.datacolor.com or MonacoOptix from X-Rite ( http://www.xrite.com ).

Both specialize in color management and it would be a lot easier (and cheaper if you factor in the management costs of introducing another platform) to look at calibration software.