I currently manage a few more than a hundred computers for students in a University. The current setup is roughly as follows: all these computers dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04. On Ubuntu, login works as follows:
- The authentication is made through a central LDAP server, which allows users to use the same login/password pair as for all the other online services at the university.
- The user's home directory is mounted from a central file server through the Samba (cifs) protocol.
Is there a way to setup the Windows installation so that it behaves similarly to the Linux one? The caveat is that I do not have any access to the central servers; all the information I have about them is the configuration files on the Ubuntu partition.
Currently Windows XP is installed for historical reasons, but the University does have volume licenses for Vista and Seven, so I could switch over if it would help making the above work.