well, more bad news.
i tried both of the scripts, and again they work like a treat when i run them on the server itsself, but when i run them from my laptop... no such luck.
The first one gives another "server is not operational" and the second one gave a script error.
i ran it in debug mode and noticed it failed on the line :
$AdoCommand.CommandText ="Select AdsPath, samAccountName, GroupType from 'LDAP://"+GetObject("LDAP://rootDSE").Get("defaultNamingContext")+"' "+$filter
I also noticed that debug mode treated the last part :
.Get("defaultNamingContext")+"' "+$filter
as a separate line, if i am not mistaking that means that the previous statement failed. i then ran the following on my lap to check if i was correct :
$rootdse = GetObject("LDAP://rootDSE")
? @error + "/" + @serror
And that returned :
-2147016646
(No @serror)

I am really starting to believe that there is no error in the syntax part but just some configuration error that is preventing my server to provide ldap services to my laptop.
I just don't have a clue where to begin and what to look for. I think i am going to kill RRAS for a while and disable the other NIC (that is connected to the ADSL Modem).

ADSysteminfo might query AD but i think it uses some other mechanism than ldap ?? See also the output when connecting to the server using ldp.exe in my first reply to you.
It appears that it can open a connection but the server is sending no or malicious data back.

I'm even beginning to consider to format the server, reinstall 2000 advanced server from scratch, first only a domain with single NIC, then try to query AD with LDAP and after that add the rest of the components one by one whilst continuing to test ldap. (that will cost me next weekend though.. )

Is there any information (perhaps from the folks from MS themselves) about the exact conditions that must be met for a server to provide LDAP, you know like some other processes need IIS running or something like that.

Thanks for being this patient with me...