Active Directory Services and their System Center Management Packs

As you might be aware, every Microsoft technology has the requirement to be manageable through PowerShell and System Center. Manageability through System Center is done through Management Packs. (MPs). While I discussed the PowerShell manageability stories for the five Active Directory services last Saturday, below is the overview of the availability and functionality of the … Continue reading "Active Directory Services and their System Center Management Packs"

MS13-032 Vulnerability in Active Directory Could Allow Remote Code Execution (Important)

It’s not often, that Active Directory Domain Controllers get security updates. The Active Directory Domain Services Server Role is one of the most robustly written code, as I pointed out in an earlier blogpost on Statistics on Active Directory-related Security Bulletins. Since 2001, Microsoft has issued 18 Security Bulletins with patches to address issues in … Continue reading "MS13-032 Vulnerability in Active Directory Could Allow Remote Code Execution (Important)"

Patch management, a differentiator for small businesses?

Small Novell networks often have a Microsoft Windows server somewhere. This might seem odd, but it actually makes sense when you look at the way businesses tend to cave under the pressure of keeping their networks updated. Most of the times this is why a Windows Server gets introduced and most of the time it's the first of … Continue reading "Patch management, a differentiator for small businesses?"

Be prepared! (Windows Server 2003 SP2 coming)

It's been a long time since we've seen fixes-only service packs to Microsoft Windows. After looking at Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Release Candidate 1 (SP2 RC1) it looks to me that this upcoming service pack will be more like Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2. Not necessarily a bad … Continue reading "Be prepared! (Windows Server 2003 SP2 coming)"

Deploying Windows Vista centrally

Microsoft Windows Vista has been designed from the ground up to be easy to deploy. The guys introduced a couple of new technologies to help you accomplish an organization wide deployment. Along with the technologies that we already had to our disposal, these are bundled in the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment. (BDD for short)

Changed permissions on your %windir%

On the second Tuesday of the month Microsoft introduces updates for it's products. As a system administrator you might keep distance from it the first week because of all the bad things that could happen to your systems. When you have changed permissions on the WinNT and Windows directories of your servers and workstations this should … Continue reading "Changed permissions on your %windir%"