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Hey all, Ned here with some new troubleshooting tool love, courtesy of the ADREPLSTATUS team at Microsoft. I’ll let them do the talking: The Active Directory Replication Status Tool (ADREPLSTATUS) is now LIVE and available for download at the Microsoft Download Center . ADREPLSTATUS helps administrators...

Hi all, Ned here again. We get emailed here all the time about issues involving delays in user logons. Often enough that, a few years back, Bob wrote a multi-part article on the subject. Taking it to the next level, some of my esteemed colleagues have created a multi-part TechNet Wiki series on understanding...

Hi all, Ned here again with an actual back to back mail sack. This week we discuss: Running out of USNs and Versions DFSR RDC LAN WAN FWIW AOK NPS and dotted NetBIOS domain names USMT and the case of the failing sourcepriority Revisiting NIC teaming Weird DFSR files MaxConcurrentAPI...

Hi everyone. It’s Mark Renoden here again and today I’ll talk about effective troubleshooting. As I visit various customers, I’m frequently asked how to troubleshoot a certain problem, or how to troubleshoot a specific technology. The interesting thing for me is that these are really...

Hi folks, Ned here again with your questions and comments. This week we talk: AD Garbage Collection behavior Applying Group Policy based on installed roles and features Apple hates .local domains More on auto site coverage from Lurch Fixing the mysteriously bad CPU performance of brand...

Hi everyone. This is your friendly (debatable) PFE, Mark Renoden again. Today I’m talking about DFS Override Referral Ordering – a seldom-used feature with an interesting benefit. For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll refer to the following Active Directory Site Diagram: For the entire discussion...

Hi folks, Ned coming to you from the secret underground redoubt, where the cable is out, the wife is at grad school , and the dogs are napping as autumn finally reaches North Carolina. I’m not a fan of blog posts that only aggregate links and don’t offer original thought. Today I make...

Mark here again. Following a recent experience in the field (yes, Premier Field Engineers leave the office), I thought it’d be useful to discuss Active Directory Topology and how it influences DFS Namespace and DFS Folder referrals. Let’s look at the following environment for the purposes of our discussion...

Hiya folks, Ned here again. When interviewing a potential support engineer at Microsoft, we usually start with a softball question like “what are the five FSMO roles?” Everyone nails that. Then we ask what each role does. Their face scrunches a bit and they get less assured. “The RID Master… hands out...

Hi folks, Ned here again. This week we talk about 10 reasons not to use list object access dsheuristics, USMT trivia nuggets, poor man’s DFSDIAG, how to get network captures without installing a network capture tool, and some other random goo. Oh yeah, and friggin’ Smurfs. The downsides...

Hi folks, Ned here again. We introduced the AD Administrative Center in Windows Server 2008 R2 to much fanfare. Wait, I mean we told no one and for good measure, we left the old AD Users and Computers tool in-place. Then we continued referencing it in all our documentation. And people say we're a marketing...

Hello all, Jonathan here again. Today, I want to address a question that we see regularly. As customers upgrade Active Directory, and they inevitably reach the point where they are ready to change the Domain or Forest Functional Level, they sometimes become fraught. Why is this necessary? What does this...

Hi folks, Ned here again. Today we discuss trusts rules around domain names, attribute uniqueness, the fattest domains we’ve ever seen, USMT data-only migrations, kicking FRS while it’s down, and a few amusing side topics. Scottie, don’t be that way. Go Mavs. Creating trusts...

…Without a DC to spare! Hey all, this is Sean. You may remember me from a few old ADFS posts . I’m no longer on the Directory Services team but I still do a lot of DS stuff in Premier Field Engineering (PFE). Anyway, I recently ran into a few “interesting” site topologies while in the field. I want to...

Hi folks, Ned here again. Around six years ago we released Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003. Like Windows XP SP2, it was a security-focused update. It was the first major server update since the Trustworthy Computing initiative began so there were things like a bootstrapping firewall, Data Execution...

Hi folks, Ned here again. I recently wrote a KB article about some expected DCDIAG.EXE behaviors . This required reviewing DCDIAG.EXE as I wasn’t finding anything deep in TechNet about the “Services” test that had my interest. By the time I was done, I had found a dozen other test behaviors...

Hi folks, Ned here again. Despite the reputation for cutting edge technology, a lot of IT departments can get stuck in the now or worse, the past. Since it’s a new year, a new economy, and winter is coming to a close, here are some articles you should find interesting if you are looking to the...

Ned here. The Windows Server division is looking for your feedback. A snippet from their post: From our research we have identified 5 areas where our customers have expressed increased concerns: Enabling an increasingly mobile workforce Working within the constraints of tightening...

Hi folks, Ned here again with your questions and our answers. This is a pretty long one; looks like everyone is back from vacation, winter storms, and hiding from the boss. Today we talk Kerberos, KCC, SPNs, PKI, USN journaling, DFSR, auditing, NDES, PowerShell, SIDs, RIDs, DFSN, and other random goo...

Greetings everyone. Warren here again with a blog post that is a collection of common DFSR issues that I have encountered over the past few years. The goal of this blog post is to list these common DFSR configuration mistakes that have caused problems to prevent you making the same mistake. Knowing what...

Hiya folks, Ned here again. In today’s Mail Sack I discuss SP1, DFSR, GPP passwords, USMT, backups, AD disk configurations, and the importance of costumed pets. Boo. Win7/R2 SP1 RC in production USMT ramp up Daily DFSR health reports Recommendations for separating AD folders and...

Hello there folks, it's Ned . I’ve been out of pocket for a few weeks and I am moving to a new role here, plus Scott and Jonathan are busy as #$%#^& too, so that all adds up to the blog suffering a bit and the mail sack being pushed a few times. Never fear, we’re back with some goodness...

Kip Ng gives the sometimes unpopular but ultimately best advice: IT Operations: The Reasons Why You Don’t Want To Be Unique OpsVault is a newish blog by PFE’s talking about operational best practices; some of it is pretty common sense, some not so much. They raise topics that...

Hello world, Ned here again. I’m back to write this week’s mail sack – just in time to be gone for the next two weeks on vacation and work travel . In the meantime Jonathan and Scott will be running the show, so be sure to spam the heck out of them with whatever tickles you. This week...

Hello folks, Ned here again. Previously I explained how swapping out existing storage can be a method to migrate an existing DFSR environment to new hardware or operating system. Now in this final article I will discuss how reinstallation or an in-place upgrade can be used to deploy a later version of...