The list of issues involved with creating a W2K AD domain is a rather long
list. Sure, you can DCPromo on a standalone server to create your forest
root, but without carefull planning and testing, the new forest will be a
certain failure. While some decisions can be reversed, a few critical ones
cannot.
AD network hierarchy, dns zone hierarchy, dns root hints, remote domain
logins over slow links, FSMO role placement, GC placement, dns name
resolution, security, services to support, hardware / software
compatibility, W2K in native mode or mixed mode?, OU structure?, backup
procedures?, etc.
The default first site is automatically created upon creation of forest
root. Additional sites require a new domain controller, the new site's
replication with default-first-site can then be managed/modifed. This
doesn't apply if a single forest root DC has no-one to replicate to, but
then you'll need to design a robust backup/ recovery policy since loss of AD
and/or domain schema is not an option.
Fortunately, there are numerous resources available for you to research a
possible solution /decision.
http://www.labmice.net/ActiveDirectory/AD_deploy.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/default.asp
I'll emphasize testing again. Papers are just papers, scenarios are always
unique. Each network is different. Once you have a roadmap on where you
would like to go, set up a test server, promote it, analyze the result,
reconfigure and reinstall when needed.
It will be well worth the effort. Reinstalling is reletively painless and
does wonders for experience, at least, it's much less painfull than
discovering that you wanted to name your domain "whatever.local" instead of
"whatever.com" 6 months into the deployment.
