A lot of people have an opinion on the Offline Domain Join (ODJ) functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 Active Directory, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but sometimes fact checking is useful for a discussion. To this point, I have captured the top 5 myths on ODJ from discussions ...

Microsoft introduced the VM-GenerationID in Windows Server 2012, to enable Virtual Machines (VMs) to notice when they’re snapshotted, restored and/or cloned. Active Directory is the first technology to put the VM-GenerationID to good use. The following Hypervisors support VM-GenerationID: Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition (Hyper-V) ...

I’ve written before on Active Directory-based Activation. This new activation method allows domain-joined Windows 8 clients and Windows Server 2012-based member servers to be activated and deactivated automatically based on their domain membership. I’m very fond of this feature. However, for many enterprise organizations, Active Directory-based ...

For the last years, we’ve been modeling the business into group memberships and their associated access control lists. For some organizations this has even led to changing the way they performed business from before they automated their business processes. For other organizations, this has resulted in token bloat. It’s time someone changed that ...

Windows Genuine Advantage and Windows Activation has been hunting admins trying to make their legally purchased volume licenses seamlessly work for them for years. About volume activation While Windows XP volume activation was straightforward, Microsoft felt its volume license product keys were misused in less legal situations; according to the ...

I’m a Directory Services MVP. Have been for the last three years, too. This expertise is part of the Identity and Access area together with the ForeFront, ForeFront Identity Manager (FIM) and Enterprise Security MVPs. These latter guys and girl are really great. One of my favorite Enterprise Security MVPs is Paula Januszkiewicz. I’ve had the ...