With Windows PowerShell Scripting being one of the requirements in the current Common Engineering Criteria (CEC), all Microsoft server products need to comply with having Windows PowerShell scripting support. While some Active Directory technologies have not yet adopted PowerShell (Active Directory Certificate Services, for example), Active Directory Domain Services has adopted this criteria wholeheartedly in … Continue reading "Active Directory Domain Services Command Fu, Part 6"
Category: Active Directory
Active Directory
Active Directory Domain Services Command Fu, Part 3
As some systems administrators have already found out, on Microsoft Windows Servers some tasks cannot be performed using the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Although multiple vendors have released graphical tools to make these tasks even more tedious easier for the typical click-on-through Windows Admin, these tasks can easily be performed using the built-in command tools. … Continue reading "Active Directory Domain Services Command Fu, Part 3"
Active Directory Domain Services Command Fu, Part 1
As some systems administrators have already found out, on Microsoft Windows Servers some tasks cannot be performed using the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Although multiple vendors have released graphical tools to make these tasks even more tedious easier for the typical click-on-through Windows Admin, these tasks can easily be performed using the built-in command tools. … Continue reading "Active Directory Domain Services Command Fu, Part 1"
10 years of Active Directory
While last year, Jorge mentioned the 10 year anniversary of a production deployed Active Directory domain, today DirTeam is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Active Directory as a released product.
Domain Controllers: Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter?
When making choices for a new Active Directory environment, choices eventually need to be made for the Operating System for the Active Directory Domain Controllers. The key question here is whether the Enterprise and Datacenter Editions add any substantial functionality to the Standard Edition.
Active Directory Visibility Modes
While being involved with my company’s Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) implementation I ran into the Active Directory List Object Access Mode, set through the DS-Heuristics attribute. I decided to give you a little rundown of this mode and the other (default) Active Directory Visibility mode, how they’re different, how to enable (and disable) one … Continue reading "Active Directory Visibility Modes"
Active Directory in Hyper-V environments, Part 4
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Datacenter Edition offers the ability to make virtual machines highly available by leveraging failover clustering. This however is not a good idea in the case of Active Directory Domain Controllers. In this post I’ll explain why Hyper-V High Availability for Domain Controllers is not a good idea and … Continue reading "Active Directory in Hyper-V environments, Part 4"
Centralized Start Menu Management
Today I'll show you a neat little solution I deployed in an environment recently as a solution for a centralized Start Menu based on Active Directory group membership. It enables users to see and use networked applications they have rights to from their Start Menu and it enables administrators to easily allow and disallow users … Continue reading "Centralized Start Menu Management"
4 methods to add Server Core RODCs to your environment
The Read-only Domain Controller is one of the new and most existing features of Windows Server 2008. So is Server Core. Combining these two features opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your Active Directory environment.
Building the Flaming Dog Lanfestival environment
One of the fun things I get to do is co-organizing the Flaming Dog Lanfestival, where my main responsibility is to design, build and manage the networking infrastructure. About the Flaming Dog Lanfestival Last year Michiel de Jongh and I organized the Flaming Dog Lanfestival for the first time. This event is sponsored by OGD, … Continue reading "Building the Flaming Dog Lanfestival environment"