How We Did it

We created a test network with two Windows NT 4.0 master domains, putting 500 users on one domain and 1,000 users on the other. We took an image of both servers, which we reverted to at the beginning of testing for each subsequent product to maintain a consistent starting point.

Our three test servers were built by us using Intel motherboards and boxed 800-MHz Pentium III processors with 256M bytes of memory and 30G-byte Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics drives. The NT 4.0 Servers were each configured with a 2G-byte system partition, with the remainder being partitioned as a data volume. Our Windows 2000 server had a single 30G-byte partition. The NT Server 4.0 was updated with Service Pack 5, and Win 2000 Advanced Server was updated with Service Pack 1. All the servers were on the same 100M bit/sec Ethernet network segment with minimal traffic.

We used each product we tested to consolidate, model (if available) and migrate the two NT domains into a single directory on a newly installed Win 2000 server. In each product, we looked for the ability to clean up, reconfigure and consolidate domains, and focused on how accurate and complete the migration process was. We also looked for the ability to model a migration and undo any changes we made during the consolidation or migration.

For ease of use we looked at how intuitive each product was, from installation through the migration and after. We expected it to be clear what each tool accomplished from its name and which action we needed to take next during the migration process. We expected to read through the documentation, but not study it for days trying to locate the needed information.

The management capability we looked for was the ability to perform the migration and provide the same capabilities down the road without putting limits on how you could configure your directory. We graded the products on how well they migrated security settings, passwords, user accounts, groups, shares and files, and how they handled orphaned files. We considered performance, but put more weight on how easily and quickly we could complete a migration than on the speed of the code.

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Williams is the director of ProductReviews.com in Alpine, Utah. He is a product improvement consultant, usability shrink and freelance writer. He can be reached at Dennis@ProductReviews.com.