Kelly's questions

I am setting up a domain controller and active directory at my job. I have everything working great (for the most part)... I have policies in place. I am getting a lot of static from the upper ups about this change, as they have had a DC/AD in the past and had all kinds of issues with it.

So with that said, our question would be: is there a way to run a DC/AD without having to use the domain users from the server to login and use the local PC user account?

In other words, I want to use the domain to handle only the policies for that computer and nothing else.

I'm hoping if I can take this step I will be able in the near future use it to its full potential.

I have 4 networks. 10.22.227.0\24, 10.28.43.0\24, 10.0.3.0\24, 10.0.6.0\24. In total there is some where around 250 users. What i would like to be able to do is send the user a message from my computer or my laptop. I used msg from the CMD line and Net send from the CMD line. This is great and all but really only works well with in the local lan and at best its a 50/50 shot.

I do not (at this time) have a DC or AD set up. All sites are networked together through a site to site VPN and a Fiber Tunnel. All the Computers are Win 7 Pro & 10 Pro

Is there another way i can send messages to users even if i need to install some small (light weight) software (preferably free) would be fine.