Active Directory without global catalog

Question

Are there any Active Directory configurations supported, where forest contains no Global Catalog?

EDIT: Since it was a prevalent comment to the question, I will answer it here: I am working on a product and QA requested that it must work in environment with no GC is present at all. Hence the question: are there conceivably any environments which don't have one.

Answer 1

Active Directory Directory Services: No. You need at least one GC

Active Directory Application Mode: Yes (to my knowledge, you don't need a GC)

As Massimo asks; Why would you want such a thing?

Answer 2

You need at least on GC, your first domain controller is setup by default as a Global Catalog server.

As many have said, I can't understand why you want to do this. If you have multiple domains in your forest, you really need a GC per domain for them to communicate effectively and if you only have 1 domain in your forest, then your GC really doesn't add much overhead.

Answer 3

This is a bizarre request. According to the TechNet article on GCs, in a single-Domain environment the only absolute requirement for a GC seems (and I do say "seems") to be for GAL lookups in Exchange, but all the same I'm failing to understand why creating a GC could be something you would want to avoid.

Answer 4

The GC is the system against which you actually authenticate. If you have no GCs you can't authenticate. Hit TechNet and you will see this pervasively throughout the documentation.

Answer 5

In a single domain environment without Exchange you don't need a GC, even with multiple sites. GC has got nothing to do with locating domain controllers in this scenario.