Thanks guys, I really appreciate the fast responses. you all gave me some nice ideas to explore.
in response to the ambiguity issue: All ou names in our org are unique, and this wil never change (at least not in the short-medium term) so that should not be an issue.

at this time I have 4 options, & thatīs all I need

1) the INI file (safe but high main.)
2) dsquery ->pipe to text file, open, readline etc. (slow, due to the piping of the file & opening it, but maybe the easiest to implement) (i need the path for other things so I canīt pipe it directly to DSMOVE for instance.)
3) the idea of the groups in OUīs is nice, but is also like 1 high main.
4) maybe the kixforms script includes some nice ideas, lookin in it now.

once again thanks guys..

ps: a lot has changed since kix 3.6x/NT4. It still is quite a culture shock..

ps ps: Iīm well known for my "nasty" (ugly code) kix scripts but if you guys would like I could post the completed code here once itīs ready..