About Active Directory and the ADS domain
Active Directory is a hierarchical collection of network resources that can contain users, computers, printers, and other Active Directories. Active Directory Services (ADS) allow administrators to handle and maintain all network resources from a single location. Active Directory is a feature in Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000, and is not available to Mac OS X, Mac OS, or Unix client software.
The IU ADS domain (also called ads.iu.edu) is the primary domain in the Indiana University Active Directory, driven by the Windows Server operating system. It provides account authentication services. In general, you probably don't need to know how to configure your computer to connect to IU's ADS domain. If you are an IU employee, your departmental computing support provider will probably configure this for you. In campus housing, Get Connected will automate this process for Windows 7, Vista, and XP. If, however, you wish to configure a Windows computer to connect to IU's ADS domain, see Configuring your Windows computer to connect to IU's ADS domain.
