Windows 2000 Trusts between two forests

[corefm]

Hello

We have a Main Office called DomainA.com and a Branch Office called alpha.DomainA.com. Both are in different forests. We would like to merge the branch office with the main office. We also have seperate Exchange servers at both offices.

Currently both domains work fine as they are. Main office uses SMS and Branch office uses a third party product for software upgrades. Both offices have their own GPOs.

What are the consequences of creating a non-transitive (one-way) trust such that branch trusts the main office.
How can we centralize software upgrades with SMS?
Would there be any security issues by creating a trust relationship?
Can users on DomainA.com login to alpha.Domain.com without having to create a separate account on alpha.DomainA.com?
By creating a trush relationship, do users on DomainA.com have an option to select either Domain name thro the Login Screen?

Thanks in advance
fm

 

[dholbrook]

It sounds like you could easily violate rule #1, i.e., if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it!

You need to understand trusts really well, and understand that your group policies do not work between forests.

I do not understand why you want to keep two different forests and try to resolve it all with one way trusts, etc. Why don't you put the remote domain under the main forest?

What are you really trying to accomplish? If you want to let users in Domain.com physically go to the remote site and log on using to systems there using their home accounts, you will also need to establish roaming profiles, etc, as well as the trusts. Is this a large number of users????

You ask for some really complex help, but have really not provided any explaination of what you want to do or why. More info would really help.

HTH,

David