Other Providers

ADSI doesn't stop with LDAP and WinNT. Here are some of the other providers that you can work with.

• GC. This provider allows you to work with the Global Catalog on AD domain controllers that host a replica of the Global Catalog. It works similarly to the LDAP provider, but uses the TCP ports assigned to access the Global Catalog.

• OLE DB. This provider allows you to perform search operations on AD by using Microsoft's OLE DB database interface.

• IIS. Provides access to the IIS metabase, which contains all of IIS' configuration information.

• NDS. This provides connects to Novell NetWare Directory Services. Note that later versions of NDS also support LDAP queries, meaning you can use the more generic LDAP provider for some operations.

• NWCOMPAT. Connects to Novell NetWare Bindery directories, found in NetWare 3.x and later.

Because most of your administrative tasks will involve the LDAP and WinNT providers, I'm not going to provide coverage or examples of how to use these other ADSI providers. However, you can access the ADSI documentation online at msdn.microsoft.com/library to learn more about them, if necessary.