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. Let’s go through the differences between the main ...

On Patch Tuesday for June 2009 (yesterday, June 9, 2009) Microsoft released security bulletin MS09-18 yesterday to address a vulnerability in Active Directory and Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) that could allow remote code execution. It’s should not come as a shock Microsofts Active Directory and Active Directory Application Mode ...

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 ...

Last time we discussed how to transition your Active Directory to Windows Server 2008, which was something a lot of you were interested in. This time I'm talking in-place upgrading Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 Domain Controllers to Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers. While this might seem like simply feeding the DVD and ...

You might be running Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 Domain Controllers at the moment and you're looking to replace these servers with Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers to utilize the new features of Windows Server 2008. You might also be looking to replace your aging Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 Domain ...

Microsoft released a security update for Active Directory and Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) today. The accompanying security bulletin marks this update as important. Rating a Security update as Important means the update fixes a vulnerability whose exploitation could result in compromise of the confidentiality, integrity, or ...

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is part of the recently released Service Pack 2. In the last months one question remained unanswered: ''Is it possible to use Windows Deployment Services (WDS) in a non-Active Directory environment?'' Today I answer it myself, using questions you might have after this short introduction...   ''Why is this ...

I had and have seen numerous discussions with people on the benefits and drawbacks of putting Active Directory files and folders on a separate volume or even on several separate volumes. Time to makes some things clear!   Active Directory on separate volumes I suggest to locate Active Directory files and folders on a separate volume, ...

With Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 comes a new security model to publish your servers to the Internet: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 boxes configured with the Edge Transport Server Role. This new model replaces the current Front-End / Back-end model.   Front-ends and Back-ends (2000-2003) In the last year two of my projectteams ...

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 ...