Well since Sprint is screwing with me today, I need something to do until they kill the T1 again. This thread looks interesting. :) | 1) We will be logging into their flaky, virus-ridden domain Now that...sucks. If they can't get enough control over their domain enviorment to pervent virus spreading...somethings definitly wrong. More later though. | 2) We will be switching our AntiVirus package from Symantec (which has | been working well for us) to McAfee (which doesn't seem to be working well | for them) In my expierence, Symantec is a great product. Too bad you're switching. McAfee comes close, but it's just not quite on Symantec's level. And a Second vote for Sophos from me. | 3) We will be forced to use Outlook for e-mail...no longer are we allowed | to use Eudora, Netscape, Mozilla, etc. In my experience, most don't care about this policy until YOU have a problem. So if you're calling to the help desk about an e-mail problem, they're going to walk you through Outlook. So have it setup and ready, and use whatever you use the rest of the time. As long as they're not forcing you to Exchange, they won't really know the difference until you call them. | Is there anything that can be done to make this transition easier? Get yourself somesort of firewall and filter between the two networks. Your main goal should be to protect yourselves from yourselves. (The first being you're branch office, the latter being the new main office that's decided to eat you) | (preferably without doing something that will get me fired, like | telling them that they're morons) Wording is everything. Be creative. Tell them they're morons without calling them morons. And ummm....good luck. Ben suggested a BDC. If you're they're running Windows 2000, the better soultion might be a subdomain...or whatever it's called. Basically you remain in control of your PDC, but your PDC is part of the head office's domian. In the event of network failure, you should still be able to get work done, and you should be able to log in to any machine that's part of the domain tree. And you're head office and log into your domain controller and "fix" things, so they're happy. If it's WinNT domains, setting up domain turst might be better than being assimilated into their domain. And now we're really far off topic, I think that's enough windows shit for a TCLUG post. --- If you're being forced off your mail servers and on the theirs, damn. That sucks. :) If not, the more you protect your e-mail the better off you'll be. These days, e-mail is thhe #1 source of viruses, trojans, etc. So if you can get any sort of server side soultion on your e-mail server, it's good. procmail filters, virus scanners, RBS, etc...even if it's not UNIX mail servers there is plenty that can be done. But make this a priority. Second in the list of threats is already infected computers. You will experience an influx of computers that are already compromised. This is what you need a firewall/filter for between the two networks. Next comes Internet, but you should have that covered already, and doesn't sould like that is going to change. Still, there are products and open source stuff out there that can help. As for anything else, well, you know where to find me. Don't get fired. 1 roomate seeking employment is enough. :) Andrew S. Zbikowski | http://www.ringworld.org "The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world."