Active Directory Blog : Vista, Active Directory General

Testing a Credential Provider

Tim Springston — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:43:36 GMT

Weeks ago I blogged about how single sign on and credential providers work and a scenario you can run into with them. One reader faced a slightly different scenario but was able to apply that topic toward getting his issue resolved. He had installed a...(read more)

Thoughts on Single Sign On and Credential Providers

Tim Springston — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:35:26 GMT

We use the term single sign on (SSO) to describe a variety of behaviors in Windows and other applications where the result is simply to prevent the user from being prompted to provide their credentials again and again; to ideally enter their credentials...(read more)

ADMT 3.1 Is Now Available for Download!

Tim Springston — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:36:00 GMT

There’s been a lot of interest in the next version of our free migration tool and guide. Well, it’s now available. The link below can get you to the new Migration Guide, ADMT itself, and a link to the Password Export Server (PES) 3.1 in both x86 and x64...(read more)

ADMT 3.1 Beta!

Tim Springston — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:04:00 GMT

For folks who have been interested helping test Active Directory Migration Tool version 3.1 your day has come! The ADMT 3.1 Beta is here! This is a beta , not the finished product, so please test it out in your non-production environment and file bugs...(read more)

2008 Certificate Web Enrollment Pages - Available!!

Tim Springston — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT

I am very happy to announce that the Certificate Web Enrollment pages from Server 2008 are available as a free download at last. Just click on the links below to get the pages, then follow the steps in the KB article to install them on your Server 2003...(read more)

ADMT and Server 2008

Tim Springston — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:09:00 GMT

Whenever we release a new product or suite of products we at Microsoft want to ease the adoption of it. For that reason we’ve released tools and scripts over the years to help our customers out. We’ve typically given these as free downloads from the internet,...(read more)

The FEK, AES and FIPs: Acronym Heaven!

Tim Springston — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:14:00 GMT

I’ve had several blog posts about the improved security in Windows Vista and Server 2008, particularly around cryptography. Here’s one more, albeit a short one. This post is about how, generally, Encrypted File System (EFS) works using Advanced Encryption...(read more)

The Domain Logon Dialogue

Tim Springston — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:21:00 GMT

Happy New Years everyone! Let’s start the year off with a less strenuous article regarding how the domain logon list gets populated. I’m talking about the user logon dialogue which you see following pressing control, alt and delete at the same time. There...(read more)

Server 2008 and Windows Vista: Encryption Better Together

Tim Springston — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:00:00 GMT

A while back I did a blog post about some problems that were seen with people testing Windows Vista and then “rolling back” to Windows XP and some problems that could be seen when using the same computer object (also known as account) in AD. If you didn’t get a chance to read it here’s the post. What that scenario highlighted was the added level of encryption, by way of leaving behind a little of the supporting infrastructure in the msds-supported-encryptiontypes attribute value. In this post we’re going to talk about the Big Picture of the new authentication encryption available and a few things to keep in mind....(read more)

All The Logging In The World

Tim Springston — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:40:00 GMT

There’s normal troubleshooting and then there’s the stuff you do when the basic troubleshooting doesn’t get things resolved. Normal troubleshooting can be things like selecting “last known good” on a reboot after installing a new driver and having a blue screen. Or perhaps uninstalling and then reinstalling an application, or altering settings for the application or operating system to alleviate a problem. Sometimes we have to dig in and find out more. Many admins out there in the world live that every day. Which is why we add methods to find out more into our products. This post is all about listing all of the data gathering methods that a Directory Services person may ever need to know. Since there are so many it will be difficult to organize well in one uber post but I’m going to put out here for you all anyway, disorganized or not....(read more)