Hello all, If you pay attention to the updates we rollout each month or take note of what Windows Updates are on your Windows 8 PC or Windows Server 2012 Server, you may have seen some monthly rollup updates. Below are the rollups from the first one when...

Hey everyone, I’d like to make you aware of an opportunity to connect with some AskPFEPlat celebrities (relatively speaking, of course). We’re hosting two, one-day workshops, live and in-person. This is a unique opportunity for you to participate in detailed...

Hi AskPFEPlat readers. Tom Moser here. A question I get on a pretty frequent basis from my larger, multi-forest enterprise customers is: “Do I need to add subnets from Forest A to Forest B so that clients find the correct DC across the trust...

If you’ve been managing an Active Directory infrastructure for the last 5-10 years, you might have noticed that the pace of change has rapidly increased. After surviving the migrations from Windows NT to Windows 2000 and then Windows 2003, we settled...

I frequently get asked to consult on building out new Public Key Infrastructures here in Premier Field Engineering. One of the things that I get asked commonly is “How do I choose a key length and Hash Algorithm?”. That’s a complex question, that generally...

Hey y’all, Mark here with some quick links for you. We have two other PFE team blogs that have been getting some steam as of late we thought we’d pass along so our fine readership can check them out and spread the word. A bunch of SQL folks...

Hello folks, its Rick here. In a previous post Michael gave you nice overview of Windows Azure Services and helped you setup your own VMs in cloud using the free trial thru the Azure portal. Today I would like to walk you through building a VM in Windows...

My name is Bryan Zink and I am a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer focused on supporting Windows Server and Active Directory. You’ve probably read the fantastic post by Yong Rhee introducing RAP as a Service . Maybe you even read What is RaaS? Is That...

Some months ago, I shared a PowerShell script to enumerate the membership of privileged groups (including membership in nested groups) and report membership as well as password ages. Like most scripts, it works well in most environments, but has some...

Greg here with a quick post where the new DNS PowerShell cmdlets in AD made a task much easier. Many of our customers use Microsoft DNS and a feature of Microsoft DNS is the ability to remove stale records. By default this feature is disabled and...

If you've read any of my prior posts, you know I like to be able to do things without a lot of prep, in a short amount of time. Yes, I like the K.I.S.S principle – Keep It Simple, Stan. I also enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes when...

Here’s an interesting question that came to us from one of our readers. If you have a question for us, don't forget that you can contact us using the Contact tile just to the right of this article when viewed from our TechNet blog . Question...

While working with a customer this week on their Active Directory (AD) Site configuration I found out they had not heard about using a /32 or /128 subnet mask. In fact my Bing search did not reveal a lot of information on how and when to use this handy...

One of the great things about the Windows Assessment and Development Kit for Windows 8 is the Windows Performance Toolkit V5.0. The toolkit, itself, has a subset of tools that produce in-depth performance profiles of Windows operating systems and applications...

Here’s an interesting question that came to us from one of the readers. If you have a question for us, don't forget that you can contact us using the Contact tile just to the right of this article when viewed from our TechNet blog . Question: With an...

Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) was first introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 to manage directory service objects along with Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) however, it did not win me over until after I saw the enhancements...

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer not knowing the answer to this question or educate thy self… Enough of Shakespeare... Where’s my PFE, when I need him? Well in previous releases of the operating system, customers always depended...

Dougga here to answer a couple of quick RODC related questions.  I have been the fortunate PFE to perform ADRAPs (Active Directory Risk Assessment Program) that have had more than the average number of RODCs . I have also reviewed environments with...

Hey y’all, Mark here with some great news. A massive Slow Boot Slow Login (SBSL) hotfix rollup for enterprises that includes 90 post Windows 7/2008 R2 hotfixes is available for download. The hotfixes focus on performance (Hooray!) and stability...

Windows Server 2012 provided major improvements to the Hyper-V role, including increased consolidation of server workloads, Hyper-V Replica, Cluster Aware Updating (CAU), network virtualization and the Hyper-V extensible switch, just to name a few! Hyper...

By Mike Leary With Windows 8 + Hyper-V you have the opportunity to create a great lab environment on a single workstation. When I build a lab I like it to be isolated from any production network but also flexible enough to get Internet access from...

Remember these on Windows 2003 Server? I cannot count the number of times I’ve been asked how to clean this up. Apparently I’m not the only one that hates clutter. And what about that annoying prompt to insert your product CD-ROM...

Not sure where February went but it sure is flying by in a hurry. During the month I had another interesting question given to me to answer. Don't forget that you can contact us using the Contact tile just to the right of this article when viewed from...

Hey y’all, Mark here again. When visiting a customer PFEs tend to get a bunch of questions that have been “saved up” over time. One of my frequent customers always has a massive list for me when I get there. If they are reading this, they know who they...

Hey y’all, Mark here with a quick post. A while back Tom Moser and I wrote a powershell script to help backup and remove ADM files. http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2011/12/12/how-to-implement-the-central-store-for-group-policy-admin...