Category Archives: Active Directory Administrative Center

KnowledgeBase: The Active Directory Administrative Center crashes in Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2

The Active Directory Administrative Center (dsac.exe) offers a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for many of the features added to Active Directory in recent years, like Dynamic Access Control, Authentication Policies and Authentication Policy Silos. Unfortunately, last year, a couple of bugs were found. Luckily, they got squashed.   The situation The Active Directory Administrative Center […]

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Why I don’t like the Quest Active Directory PowerShell Cmdlets

Many Active Directory admins use and like the Quest Active Directory PowerShell Cmdlets, that are part of the free ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory. They have been freely available since 2007 and have been the long trusted scripting companion for many. I am not one of them. It’s nothing personal. Let me explain.   […]

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Windows Server 2012 Active Directory Feature Requirements

A while ago, I wrote a blogpost on the requirements you’d need to meet to take advantage of Active Directory features in Windows Server 2003 through Windows Server 2008 R2. Since Windows Server 2012 was released almost a year ago, it’s time to look at the requirements for Active Directory features in Windows Server 2012.

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10 Things you need to be aware of before deploying Dynamic Access Control

Microsoft introduced Dynamic Access Control (DAC) as its claims-based authorization solution. It’s revolutionary, because it enables admins to more granularly control access to file resources, based on attributes of objects in Active Directory, like department, manager and country, instead of through an elaborate and obscure group membership structure and static Access Control Lists (ACLs) on […]

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Active Directory Services and PowerShell manageability

As you might be aware, every Microsoft server product has the requirement to be manageable through PowerShell and System Center. The PowerShell requirement is formulated as part of the Common Engineering Criteria (CEC). With PowerShell available as a version 3 product (and part of Windows Server 2012) it’s time to see how the teams, responsible […]

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New features in Active Directory Domain Services in Windows Server 2012, Part 6: Recycle Bin GUI

A new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Windows Server 2008 R2 Forest Functional Level (FFL) is the Active Directory Recycle Bin. This feature enables administrators to restore (accidentally) deleted objects, without booting into Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) or reanimating objects (with loss of attributes).

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New features in Active Directory Domain Services in Windows Server 2012, Part 5: PowerShell History Viewer

As we’ve seen in part 4 of this series, Active Directory Domain Services in Windows Server 2012 now sports a grand total of 145 PowerShell Cmdlets. Learning these commands and putting them to good use, might seem like a week’s worth, but actually, the PowerShell History Viewer in the Windows Server 2012 Active Directory Administrative […]

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Active Directory Feature Requirements

Microsoft has included numerous features in Active Directory the last couple of years. Also, more and more technologies in products like Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and the Windows client (Windows Vista, Windows 7) have an Active Directory opt-in to store information in Active Directory. All this bountiful integration, however, comes with a price. The price […]

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From the Field: the Case of Display Issues (garbled or missing Text) in Active Directory Administrative Center

I’ve been working with Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) for a while now, but didn’t have time to look at Delegation of Control lately. Yesterday I finally came round to configuring it and was baffled by a serious issue

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