me and my project group just recently deployed MS SPS
2003 on an NT4 domain, but sorry didnt go through any
of this problem, sorry all the links and research was
done through Microsoft HSarepoint's deployement
website and from here, u can ad users though the
normal procedure , but u can add dere details in later
through user  profiles settings in SPS 2003, if
anything else i can help u wid that

There is nothing available out of the box to do this, though I seem to remember
seeing something from a 3rd party. Best bet is a Google search...

It looks then like the only thing I can do with the NT domain is have
users authenticated; the profiles  must be configured manually or done
prog. though the ...Portal.UserProfiles namespace. (nice tip, thx)

Correct?
And as a consequence of not having AD, none of the "import user"
or "select user" buttons work on the admin screens (I always have to
type them in the full domain\username by hand)

Not too upset about this, as I've been very impressed with the
product. Just want to make sure I haven't overlooked something (like
providing a domain admin account that would enable these features
with NT4) before I go to the extra trouble that seems to result from
not having AD.

You are correct. The 3rd party solution I was referring to used that namespace
to do the profile import, but was separate from the normal admin screens.

i just read an article on theserverside.net there it was written that it i snot
necessory to have Microsoft Platform on the domain side, means it is not
necessory to have AD or anything like NT4 domain, anyways i followed the same
procedure as u did for adding the users to the SPS2003, if anything else i can
help u wid dat, no need 2 thank me man, i also get help from this group like u
do, so i am giving back wat i get.

Best bet would be to write something to extract the profile from Accss then use
the Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.UserProfiles Namespace (documented in the SDK)
to insert into SPS.