Working with LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory

Working with LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory: For most IT professionals, there has been some point in their career where they have connected a product or service to a Microsoft Active Directory with LDAP for authentication. This is really nothing new and has been done for years, but I discovered a different way to set up the connections years ago when I was working on a script that would connect to Active Directory with an LDAP call to get a list of members of a group. I really thought most people already knew this and it was pretty much common knowledge, but it seems lately that every time I work with someone new setting up the LDAP configuration they seem to be quite surprised at the way I do things and I thought this should be something that I share out.