Active Directory migration overview – Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 R2 - 4sysops

If you have the task of performing an Active Directory migration from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 R2, there are a number of steps that you must complete for a smooth transition.

Source : 4sysops

FREE: ADREPLSTATUS – Active Directory Replication Status Tool

ADREPLSTATUS has a nice Office-like GUI with a ribbon and can replace RepMon or RepAdmin of the Windows 2000 support tools.

Source : 4sysops.com 
Download : www.microsoft.com

The Most Confusing Dialog Box in Active Directory

This breakdown of Kerberos settings and how they correspond to AD provides much-needed clarity

This ongoing need to clarify how Kerberos works and how it fails is a result of the fact that—although Kerberos remains the same—the services that use it and the ways they use it are often unique. The aspects that remain the same in each scenario, however, are what the settings in Active Directory (AD) are intended to address, and the difficult-to-interpret messages you’ll see when things fail.

Source : www.windowsitpro.com

Kerberos and Load Balancing

Hi guys, Joji Oshima here again. Today I want to talk about configuring Kerberos authentication to work in a load-balanced environment. This is a more advanced topic that requires a basic understanding of how Kerberos works. If you want an overview of Kerberos, I would suggest Rob’s excellent post, Kerberos for the Busy Admin. In this post, I will be using a load balanced IIS web farm as the example, but the principal applies for other applications.

Read the complete article : blogs.technet.com/b/askds

THE IMPACT OF FSMO ROLES NOT BEING AVAILABLE

AD uses a multi-master replication mechanism, meaning that updates can originate on any RWDC. For all kinds of services AD is highly redundant assuming you have more than one RWDC. Within AD some operations cannot operate using the multi-master principle, but rather use the single-master principle to ensure consistency. The roles for those operations are the so called Flexible Single Masters of Operations (FSMO). From a forest perspective two forest wide FSMO roles exist and from a domain perspective three domain wide FSMO roles exist. Below you will find which one is which.

Complete article : blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge

FREE: Blackbird auditor express – Real-time Active Directory change monitoring

Blackbird auditor express is a free and easy-to-use version of Blackbird auditor. This community version offers real-time change monitoring for organizations with basic Active Directory (AD) auditing needs.

Source : 4sysops

Powershell 2.0 download

« Where is the Powershell 2.0 download ? »

Don’t ask me why, but the official release of PowerShell 2.0 is not available in a standalone download. It is now part of the «Window Management Framework».

The framework includes :

• Windows Remote Management (WinRM) 2.0
• Windows PowerShell 2.0
• Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 4.0

It is available for Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 2008 (already included with Windows 7 and 2008 R2).

You will find all the download links and infos at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968929/en-us

Note : Don’t forget, PowerShell shortcuts are in Programs/Accessories/Windows PowerShell

Migrating from NTLM to Negotiate in a nutshell

Although it’s kind of old news, there is an interesting article on the Windows Authentication Blog :

Migrating from NTLM to Negotiate in a nutshell

Web Page Error Toolkit

Customize your 404 error pages with the Web Page Error Toolkit
For large web sites with extensive amounts of content, 2 to 10 percent of traffic is looking for pages that either don’t exist or have been moved. Most web servers return a generic 404 error page or a sitemap when a user’s desired page cannot be found. These unhelpful pages often result in a dead end for users.

With Microsoft’s Web Page Error Toolkit, you can create dynamic 404 pages that contain customized error messages along with search results seeded with relevant keywords to help your users move past the missing page and find the information they need.
The Toolkit is a customizable ASP.net application that replaces the default error page on your IIS server. The Toolkit enables you to use Bing to return results for the specified domain and locale, control the number of results returned on your page, choose whether to offer spelling corrections, and customize your error message.

You also have the option of choosing from several keyword extraction strategies that are included with the install, or providing your own implementation.

Download : www.microsoft.com/downloads
More info : Technet Magazine

How to save additional Active Directory attributes and the user password in tombstone objects

Knowing that deleted Active Directory objects are not erased immediately, but only after 60 (Windows 2000/2003) or 180 days (Windows 2003 SP1/2008), can save your day if you accidentally delete user, computer or container objects. …

… A downside of tombstone reanimation is that by default, important attributes are stripped from AD objects when they are deleted. For example, user objects’ last and first name attributes are not saved in tombstone objects. …

… The good news is that you can configure the Active Directory schema to store additional attributes in tombstone objects. The bad news is that the procedure is a bit complicated. 

Source : 4sysops

Reminder: End of Life for Service Pack 1 in Windows Server 2003 Coming Soon

Ned here again with a quick reminder: Support for computers running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 ends on April 14th, 2009. Yes, that's just under a month from now. After that point there will be no hotfixes, security updates, or support for computers...(read more)

Source : Ask the Directory Services Team

Web Performance: Enable data compression on IIS 6.0 server.

Apparently, enabling data compression on IIS 6.0 is not that straight forward task as it looks. Most people that are using IIS as a hosting server mistakenly think that enabling data compression on “Web Sites properties” is enough… well it’s not - this is only the first step in that process.

Source : blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yevgenif

Announcing the Microsoft Fix it for me Blog

Have you ever come across a Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article or been presented with a Windows Error Reporting (WER) solution and asked yourself, why can't Microsoft just fix this for me? Today KB articles and WER solutions provide you with a list of steps that can be followed to resolve your issue. However, tomorrow looks much different and we hope it helps you resolve any issues you have with our products faster and easier.

Our team's purpose is to automate the steps in Microsoft KB articles and Windows Error Reporting (WER) solutions so you can click a button and have the issue resolved.

Source : blogs.technet.com/fixit4me

How to query a WINS server

Every time I got a NetBIOS or WINS name resolution problem I hit google and search for a way to query a WINS server. And every time loose many minutes looking for a tool.

Well, this time I decided to blog about it so next time maybe my blog will show up in my search.

Actually the answer to the question «How do you query a WINS server ?» is pretty simple :

Use NBLookup from Microsoft.

How to Debug Kernel Mode Blue Screen Crashes (for beginners)

Perhaps the largest call generator for the Core Team is for us to determine cause of a hard system crash that generates a Blue Screen and memory dump file.  Commonly called a "Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)."  The vast majority of these memory dumps could be analyzed by Administrators in just a few minutes using the latest debugging tools.  These tools do most of the work for you, once they're set up.  Kernel mode debugging is a pretty specialized skill, with experienced debuggers throwing around lots of imponderable terms.  But it's really pretty simple and I'll point out the gaffe's you'll want to avoid as a beginner.

Read the complete article : blogs.technet.com/askcore

Windows Server 2008: Access Based Enumeration

Last week during a community meeting I was talking to Kurt Roggen about all the cool new features  in Windows Server 2008. While talking we came to the discussion if Access Based Enumeration (ABE) was still implemented and if we had a GUI to enable it.

Excellent post by Alves Arlindo about Windows Server 2008 and ABE on blogs.technet.com

FastCGI Extension - RTM

I misted that news, but looks like FastCGI has bean released to manufacturing.

Read more and download :

• FastCGI Extension for IIS6.0
• FastCGI for IIS7

TCP/IP Fundamentals for Microsoft Windows

This online book is a structured, introductory approach to the basic concepts and principles of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol suite, how the most important protocols function, and their basic configuration in the Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 families of operating systems. This book is primarily a discussion of concepts and principles to lay a conceptual foundation for the TCP/IP protocol suite and provides an integrated discussion of both Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

Download : www.microsoft.com/downloads

Free AD Objects Recovery Tools

Jorge as a great list of free AD objects recovery tools on his blog.

Microsoft DreamSpark - Free software development tools for students

On Live in Europe, Brian Groth reported students can get free software development tools:

Over on Channel 8, the video blog for students, Bill Gates just announced free software for students in a program called DreamSpark.

 DreamSpark is simple, it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools
at no charge so you can chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a
head start on your career.

Available software:

• Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
• XNA Game Studio 2.0
• 12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club
• Expression Studio (Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Media)
• SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
• Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
• SQL Server Developer Edition
• Virtual PC 2007
• Visual Basic 2005
• Visual C++ 2005
• Visual C# 2005
• Visual J# 2005
• Visual Web Developer 2005

At the moment it's available to students in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium. More countries will be added to the list throughout the year.

In order to get this software from Microsoft at no charge, you will be asked to establish or verify your student status once every 12 months. This process is built into the DreamSpark site itself. Verification of valid student status will enable students from around the globe to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge. Note: You must be at least 18 years old or have otherwise reached the age of majority in the place (province, state or country) where you live, or if not, your parent or legal guardian must accept the Microsoft DreamSpark software license terms on your behalf, in order for you to download and use the software.

Source : LiveSide.net