Since Windows Server 2008, Microsoft no longer offers the ability to restart a Domain Controller in Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) from the default F8 boot menu. About Directory Services Restore Mode For Windows Server-based Domain Controllers, a special startup mode exists, where the Active Directory database isn’t loaded. This startup ...

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 ...

Active Directory relies on accurate time for a number of reasons. One of this reasons is Kerberos authentication, which by nature can only cope with a difference in time (time skew) of five minutes between the Kerberos server and client. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think the time skew limitation and the overall Kerberos implementation as we know ...

While upgrading your Active Directory Domain Controllers, Domain Functional Level(s) and Forest Functional Level to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 offer additional functionality compared to previous versions, also a couple of caveats exist, that I think you should be aware of. In this blogpost: NT 4.0 Compatible Encryption ...

After releasing the whitepaper on Remotely Managing Server Core boxes, I received a message from a colleague. He claimed the following sentence on page 5 of the Whitepaper to be faulty: After you first install Windows Server 2008, in either a full or Server Core installation, you are required to change the Administrator password to a password ...

Microsoft touts the smaller attack surface as one of the biggest benefits of using Server Core, compared to a Full installation of Windows Server 2008. Because a Server Core installation is optimized, it doesn’t include most of the vulnerabilities found in Full installations. A consequence of these optimizations is a Server Core installation might ...

When the Server Core installation option of Windows Server was introduced in 2008, not a lot of people saw the greatness. A few tried it once, some tried it twice and others got hooked! Fellow administrators often complain that it’s so hard to administer the roles and features of it. Joachim Nässlander and myself, who both fall into the third ...

You know, in terms of deploying servers in a smart way, so you can actually utilize them for as long as their economical lifecycle in a supported fashion without a need to reinstall them, I’ve made a stupid decision in advising IT Pros to deploy Server Core Domain Controllers in the last two years. The problem, you see, is the product team ...

Server Core installations of Windows Server 2008 can be utilized in a variety of ways. I’ve written about using them as Web 2.0 Servers with IIS 7, PHP and MySQL, as Streaming media (reverse) proxies, as branch office servers, loaded with DFS, DNS, DHCP and secured with BitLocker Drive Encryption and of course using them as highly-optimized ...

Microsoft has published a document titled “SYSVOL Replication Migration Guide: FRS to DFS Replication” to the Download server today. The 52-page 416KB weighing document outlines how to get from using File Replication Service (FRS) replication to Distributed File System Replication(DFS-R) for the SYSVOL folder. Since DFS-R offers more performance, ...