Active Directory Administrative Center provides network administrators with an enhanced Active Directory data management experience and a rich graphical user interface (GUI). Administrators can use Active Directory Administrative Center to perform common...

Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controllers include a new feature named Offline Domain Join. A new utility named Djoin.exe lets you join a computer to a domain, without contacting a domain controller while completing the domain join operation, by obtaining...

A common warning message for anyone who has installed Active Directory on Windows Server 2008 or Windows 2008 R2, especially on the first domain controller in a forest or domain is: A delegation for this DNS server cannot be created because the authoritative...

We have updated the TechNet article, Technologies for Federating Multiple Forests , to include the prerequisites for employing Kerberos over external trusts. Highlights of the updates from the article are: The trust has to be created using the fully...

We finally published the procedures for allowing a user or group to logon locally (at the console) to a domain controller. All the administrative groups, like server operators, backup operations, account operations, and administrators have this right...

UPDATE: A faster way to open the UAC settings in Windows 7 was just brought to my attention by Dean Wells. Click Start , type UAC and press ENTER. Thanks, Dean! If that doesn’t work for some reason, you can do the following: Run wscui.cpl from...

Accidental deletion of Active Directory objects is a common occurrence for users of Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS). In Windows Server 2008 Active Directory domains, you could recover...

There are a bunch of Microsoft forum questions related to installing the Remote Server Administration Tools on both Windows 7, Windows Vista, and even the server products, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Why? There are three major reasons...

Account Operators is a default groups located in the Builtin container. Members of this group can create, modify, and delete accounts for users, groups, and computers located in the Users or Computers containers and organizational units in the domain...

A couple years back, we posted on TechNet Wiki an older article that was originally published on the TechNet Library by Steve Riley, when he worked at Microsoft. The article is Active Directory Replication over Firewalls . Since publishing it on TechNet...

When you run adprep /forestprep, you are updating the Active Directory schema forest version. Several people have asked, what is the forest schema version for Windows Server 2008 R2. To learn more about adprep and forestprep and schema versions, read...

We recently published Capacity Planning for Active Directory Domain Services on TechNet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj651019.aspx . This is a a detailed and comprehensive set of guidelines to help optimize computing resources for DCs...

This week we started pulling together resources that will hopefully become a central location to help people troubleshoot Active Directory issues in the Active Directory Troubleshooting Survival Guide . Right we've only just begun, but this will be an...

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) is a server management tool that can help you implement best practices in the configuration of your Active Directory environment. AD DS BPA scans the AD DS server role as it is installed...

Although some versions of Active Directory Users and Computers (dsa.msc) may expose a schema option to add Managed Service Accounts (msDS-ManagedServiceAccount). You should not use this option. This option is exposed because it is a schema option, but...

A few days ago we posted a document to TechNet that outlines some of the various port requirements for Active Directory. We gathered the port information from various KB articles and consolidated them into one document. I think it should serve as a great...

TechNet had duplicated content about Active Directory functional levels. The duplication caused inconsistencies as one location got updated but not the other. So the duplication has been eliminated, but I am told it has made it harder to find for some...

Last night I published an article titled Service Principal Names (SPNs) on the TechNet Wiki. Actually, I've been working on it on and off this entire week. This is something I was asked to do a while ago by Customer Support Services (CSS). The goal of...

I want to take the opportunity to thank the people who are out there providing information everyday to people using Active Directory. As I say thank you, I will link to their sites, so our readers can find them easily: ActiveDir.org Ask DS (Active Directory...

This week the Active Directory Maximum Limits - Scalability article was republished with a new friendly URL ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/active-directory-maximum-limits-scalability(WS.10).aspx ). There are plenty of people linking to this...

I have just created a Wiki article, Troubleshooting Domain Join Error Messages (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/troubleshooting-domain-join-error-messages.aspx). This article details some of the common error messages when performing...

"All my love's in vain." - "Love in Vain" , Robert Johnson (1911-1938) Hey folks, We know if you read this blog you love to find answers to all your Active Directory questions in our documentation on Microsoft.com. But before you can do that, you...

The Active Directory Maximum Limits and Scalability topic has been recently updated to reflect improvements in Windows Server 2012 to the number of RIDs that can be allocated over the lifetime of a domain. Another update was made to the section about...

We want to make people aware of guidelines we have published for installing Active Directory on Windows Azure Virtual Network at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj156090.aspx . This topic covers the differences between installing AD on Windows...

Update Dec 12, 2012: Thanks to the users who reported this error regarding license expiration: "The License has expired. Please download a new version of the Active Directory Replication Status tool from the Microsoft website." Please download the tool...