NT/SAMBA/2k/NIS

[Brent DiNicola]

I have read through the various archives and threads
and don't see anything that might answer this. I am 
hoping to get some input from a people out there who
might have dealt with this in the past. Here goes..

We have currently setup:
Samba as Workgroup (NO DOMAIN)with NIS serving the passwords
and using plaintext windows passwords. (ie. no smbpassword to
keep syncronized etc.)

What I need to know is..I want to add a few things to 
this to change the configuration about. 

1. Use of encrypted passwords (DOMAIN should do this)
2. Use of NIS should continue to authenticate all users
   on linux/solaris unix boxes that are the main meat of 
   the servers here, if not I need another way to allow the
   logins to the unix boxes and be synced with DOMAIN 
   logins without having to maintain multiple password files.
   (passwd/NIS/smbpasswd)
3. Possible that we might need Exchange here, this means
   either Win2k or NT4 to run exchange on. Do I create a
   PDC with Samba or do I create it with NT/Win2K?
   We have no PDC at this time so either would work, it's
   just a question of which would be easier.

Any help would be appreciated in this area, I would prefer to
use the older more stable samba rather than TNG just for the
stability of the samba. 

Ideas??

Brent