Novell 5

NDS is the difference. I don't work with 5.0 a lot anymore but I did work with 3.12 a lot. You need to learn as much about NDS as possible. Also learn about dsrepair, it will save your butt. The utilities are different, the process for changing system parameters on the fly is different. You use the netadmin utility to admininster the NDS tree, hence, users, printers, etc. My recommendation is to take a basic admin course for 5.1 or the upgrade course if anyone still offers it. This will help a lot but be prepared to spend time with the new OS!!!

The idea of having one "database" with users, printers, queues and some login scripts per server is replaced by a hierarchical structure (NDS), containing the same things, and a lot more. Things like file rights, printer rights etc. have not changed drastically, but the NDS has its own set of rights, and the concept is completely different. Open SYS:\Public\Win32\nwadmin32.exe and just have a look, if it's well set up you'll see a folder-like view of all the objects, and you'll find the good old users, groups and volumes. Check to find the common things like password or the trustee rights, but for the rest a course is highly recommended, NDS requires another way of thinking.
That NDS "database" is no longer "per server", it is now a distributed system of "partitions" that can have copies (replicas) on several servers. Try SYS:\Public\Win32\ndsmgr32.exe to have a look at it. Look in Novell's knowledgebase for "NDS Health Check" to see how you can basically keep an eye on the system.
The server itself hasn't changed much, it still has a core in which you load drivers and modules. The LAN drivers are the same, but the "mass storage" drivers have been changed a bit as well. No more *.DSK drivers, now you have *.HAM drivers for the adapter, and *.CDM for the different devices on it. Autoexec and Startup haven't changed, but now you'll have to load NWCONFIG in stead of INSTALL to find them.

You can use NW5 just like you did NW3, but there are quite a number of new features and possibilities you'd miss, and a forum like this is too limited and time consuming to go through them, I really suggest a good course, self-study or not, you will need it - we all did at one time.

Jim

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