GUID Partition Table or GPT is a standard that’s been around for a while but is still not completely understood by the masses.  So I wanted to do a quick blog to address some of the common questions we  hear from day to day. Previously in my...

I am sure many of you are aware that Microsoft provides several options for our customers in terms of support services. The Support website provides information about our support offerings. We have Consumer support, Professional support and various levels...

Hello, my name is Scott McArthur. I am a Senior Support Escalation Engineer in the Windows group and today’s blog will cover a common question we get involving product keys. Many times you may have a product key but you need to find out what type of key...

It is time once again to delve into the fascinating world of NTFS! So far I’ve outlined how files become more complex as they grow, the different metafiles found in the MFT, and then the different parts of Windows storage that results in the infamous...

Quite a while back I wrote a blog on a new functionality in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters called ‘file share scoping’ ( http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2009/01/09/file-share-scoping-in-windows-server-2008-failover-clusters.aspx ). I...

I know what you are thinking, “How hard can it be to work with cluster file shares?”. I would be willing to bet a lot of you have been working with File Server clusters since NT 4.0 days. If you are still working with them today in Windows Server 2008...

My name is Tanner Slayton and I am a Sr. Support Escalation Engineer for Microsoft on the Windows Core Team. I am writing today to shed some light on a common Bitlocker problem that we see. * While you can accomplish most tasks via the Bitlocker Control...

Hello, my name is Manoj Sehgal. I am a Support Escalation Engineer in the Windows group and today’s blog will cover “How to use Hash of TPM from AD to reset your TPM password”. As per Best Practices for Bitlocker we configure a Group Policy for TPM to...

Today’s blog is going to cover some issues around customizing default user profiles when deploying Windows. There are a number of resources available on the CopyProfile topic 973289 How to customize the default local user profile for Windows Vista, Windows...

My name is Joseph Conway and I am a Senior Escalation Engineer on the CORE team.   Today’s blog entry entails the steps that you as a customer can take when encountering issues with the .Net framework. The .Net framework ships as both an inbox and...

Hello, my name is Manoj Sehgal . I am a Support Escalation Engineer in the Windows group and today’s blog will cover “How to get the bitlocker policies for windows 7 for on Windows Server 2003 as domain functional level” If you open Group Policy Management...

Catchy title, huh. Perhaps not, but it is really what we want you to do. This will be a pretty short blog to get out some information that is important for you to know as it may help resolve a Hyper-V issue quickly, or, better yet, prevent one from happening...

Here’s the script for the Blog:  Reasons why the error “ Enumeration of the files failed ” may occur during System State backup by Mike Rosado, posted June 18, 2010   Open Notepad.exe, copy & paste the script below and save it to a file...

  In today’s blog submission, we would like to address some reasons and troubleshooting tips for resolving the error of “ Enumeration of the files failed ” that can occur during System State backup. This particular error can be experienced on various...

Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 has a validation test that needs to be run against all nodes confirm that your hardware and settings are compatible with Failover Clustering. For the purpose of this blog, I am not going to go into all the tests and what...

  I am here today to discuss the troubleshooting switches used to start a Windows 2008 and 2008 R2 Failover Cluster. From time to time, the Failover Cluster Service will not start on its own. You need to start it with a diagnostic switch for troubleshooting...

As discussed in previous blogs and articles, there is no longer a Cluster Service account in Failover Clustering. However, there are still some rights needed in Active Directory. The rights of the logged on user and the Cluster Name Object are part of...

What we will be covering in this blog, is a reason for an Access Denied error message in PowerShell and the options for resolving them. The particular Windows PowerShell cmdlet we will be referencing, is Get-WmiObject for accessing WMI object calls against...

The purpose of this article is to explain a troubleshooting methodology with Hyper-V that goes a little deeper than the Event Logs.  I’m creating a simple problem, starting a Virtual Machine with a corrupt .vhd file, to show how to proceed. I’m simply...

The Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering: Networking   three-part blog series has been out for a little while now.   Hopefully, it has been helpful.   Little did I know there would be an opportunity to write another part.   This...

One of the major changes from 2003 to 2008 is the way we handle logging of cluster debug events. I thought I’d do a quick write-up on how cluster debug logging works in 2008. In Windows 2003 Failover Clustering, the cluster service on each node constantly...

Hello, my name is Manoj Sehgal. I am a Senior Support Engineer in the Windows group and today’s blog will cover “How to backup recovery information in AD after Bitlocker is turned ON in Windows 7.” A common question we are asked is how do I save the recovery...

Greetings CORE blog fans!   It has been awhile so I thought it was time for another blog.   In recent weeks, we have seen an issue where the Windows Server 2008 R2 storage validation test List All Disks is failing with a Status 87.   Figure...

Hello, my name is Kaushik Ainapure. I am a Support Engineer in the Windows group and today’s blog I am going to discuss an issue with BitLocker drive preparation tool. When you try to run the BitLocker Preparation tool you may encounter the following...

  Hello, my name is Manoj Sehgal. I am a Senior Support Engineer in the Windows group and today’s blog will cover How to initialize TPM successfully when you enable Bitlocker in Windows 7. A common problem we have seen since the release of Windows...