Q:

Does UNC work between two Intranet domains?

We have some servers which will move to a new Windows 2008 domain, and some Windows 2000 servers which I would prefer to keep in their current domain for a while (until we have the resources to test and reinstall them as Windows 2008 systems in the new domain too).
Can UNC still be used to connect to file server resources on the new system from the old servers? Or is UNC limited to work only within one domain? I'll do tests on Monday but every feedback would be very welcome.

A:

UNC path connections will work between 2 windows computers regardless of domain with the following caveats:

The computers must have a viable connection between them that isn't filtering out the windows file sharing protocols
If the two computers are not part of the same forest (e.g. one or more of them are standalone, or they are both domain members but the domains themselves are not 'related') then the connecting user will have to supply username and password credentials that the box they are connecting to will understand (e.g. an account that is on that computer or a domain account from the domain that computer is in).

So you shouldn't have any real problems, other than possibly having to make sure you have an account set aside on the sharing computer that the user on the requesting computer can use to authenticate.

