Treffer: Using .NET with Active Directory.

The article offers tips on finding, inspecting, modifying, or creating Active Directory objects from Visual Basic .NET. One of the major advances of .NET over previous Microsoft development environments is the inclusion of the Framework Class Library. Rather than just shipping languages and compilers, Microsoft added in tons of useful classes that make it easier to work with the sprawling software edifice Windows has become. A good example of this is the .NET support for working with Active Directory. At the simplest level of the Active Directory, is a hierarchical, object-oriented, multi-master replicated database that can hold arbitrary objects. Windows uses active Directory to track information about many things, including users, groups, computers, servers, services, and much more. Applications, too, can put their own information into Active Directory. Active Directory information is distributed across multiple servers, and because it uses multi-master replication, a change made on one server is distributed to all the others. Microsoft also provides a related API: Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI). ADSI can work with Active Directory, or with directory services from other vendors such as Novell Directory Services.