About Domain and Active Directory Account Mode

First install and configure Windows SharePoint Services, the future can not switch modes. Regardless of which mode you use, you can add users and cross-site groups to your site using the command line tools or the site's HTML management page.
About Domain Account Mode

If you use Windows SharePoint Services within an organization that uses a Microsoft Windows domain account, you can adopt domain account mode for users and cross-site user group accounts. If you use the domain account model, you can add existing domain account information for users and cross-site groups, including their username and email address, to your site. The domain account mode is the standard mode of Windows SharePoint Services. Note that you can use the Active Directory directory service to manage domain accounts—the two modes differ in the type of account you use, not the tools you use to manage them.
About Active Directory Account Mode

If you manage Windows SharePoint Services-based Web sites for customers on the World Wide Web, you can configure Windows SharePoint Services to automatically create Active Directory directories for new users and cross-site user groups Service account. When you first configure Windows SharePoint Services, you must enable Active Directory account mode. Domain accounts cannot be used when using Active Directory account mode.

Creating users and cross-site groups using Active Directory account mode is the same as creating users with domain account mode, except that you only enter email addresses instead of domains when adding users or cross-site groups to a site account. Windows SharePoint Services checks Active Directory to see if an account with this email address already exists. Use this account if the user or cross-site user group already has an account in Active Directory. If the user or cross-site user group is new, an account is created for that user or user group in Active Directory using Windows SharePoint Services credentials; then the user is notified by email of their account name and password.

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