Group Enumeration

[Steven]

I have a legacy application that enumerates a users group
memberships. The application then performs actions on the
basis of the order that the groups are returned. (Very bad
programming I know)

Since an upgrade to W2K and AD the group enumeration lists
a the groups in a different order. However when manually
pointed to an NT4 BDC it returns the correct order. (I
think it was the initial creation date of the groups, or
the dates that the users were added)

Does anyone know the difference between NT4 enumeration
and W2K enumeration that causes this difference?

As I can still get the correct order from BDCs is there a
way to retrieve the particular atribute from AD?

 

[Joe Richards [MVP]]

I would have to go back and look but I believe the order in NT4 was by RID (i.e. group creation date) and in AD it is an
arbitrary search pattern depending on how the query was optimized on the DC prior to execution and what indices existed
to help it and how they were layed out. You will not be able to force the return in any specific order other than
alpabetically if you force a sort.