I have been working with my customer around reducing the noise and also optimising SCOM 2007 R2. The main emphasis of my work has been around the Active Directory Managment pack, but some of the techniques that I have highlighted and the links that I have used can be used more generic http://blogs.technet...

Apologies for not blogging for sometime. I have been away on vacation, out of the country on training plus work commitments so add that up and it equals and enforced hiatus. Plus of course do not forget the Volcano :). Well I am back now and have an interesting information around Event Log access and...

Hi Everyone, I am really excited to tell you that due to our continued success Premier Field Engineering in the U.K. is looking to recruit some more Engineers to join our ranks. If you are interested in joining a dynamic and exciting team, and working for a great Company, and love working with a wide...

Apologies for not blogging recent weeks. I have been tremendously busy plus working out of the country My good friend Justin Zarb showed me this the other day. Microsoft Desktop Player This is a great utility that gives you a platform to search for technet content based around . You can either use the...

We all know how powerful Powershell is, so it is great to highlight an example of where it was showed to be very effective and really quick to create a positive result. Recently I highlighted and issue that affected 2003 Domain Controllers which caused High CPU on WMIprvse.exe caused by a memory leak...

Myself and a colleague Mark Empson have been developing a New Service entitled a GPO Health Check that looks at every aspect of the health of your Group Policies. Well one of the tests involved was checking for any Group Policies that had only the Read Group Policy Object permission and not the Apply...

I had a couple of informative emails today bringing my attention to some great new tools and utilities. The first one is the Windows System State Analyzer as blogged about by the  Ask the Performance team. I never realise this functionality existed . As they state on their blog. “The basic functionality...

Certain customers have recently been experiencing an issue which I wanted to bring to your attention. Issue with Domain Controllers Windows 2003 sp2 Wmiprvse.exe consistently consumes a high percentage of CPU on Domain Controllers and svchost.exe has a a high handle count of around 75000 and another...

Hello, I had an interesting customer request recently that I thought I would share with you. Prior to an upgrade to 2003 they had an account which was used for Remote Desktop Users. On upgrading to 2003 this account became replaced by a System Owned Object with exactly the same name. So their question...

Well even when you are working on the floor at Teched you have the opportunity to research and deal with customer queries. So I was busy doing my flipping between the Ask the Experts and the Hands On Labs  and a delegate asked me a question that deserves serious consideration.   The delegate...

Hi , I had an interesting issue with a customer recently. After a recent promotion of a couple of Domain Controllers , it came to light some time later that users were able to set their passwords to 0 e.g. minimum password length = 0. On investigation what was discovered was the following. When the Domain...

well this is a rather neat addition to our methods of learning. If you really want to just dip your toe into a subject and have a “snack” then please see the following range of  “Learning Snacks” For other Windows Server 2008 Learning Snacks, please visit: Windows Server 2008   Introducing...

Hi just a quick post while I think of it. I have just found a GUI to our Recycle Bin Powershell command line. Check it out and download from  here. http://www.overall.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40:adrecyclebin&catid=15:adrecyclebinexe&Itemid=64 Features Supports...

Working with my customer today on a funny little error that keeps reappearing in their DNS Logs Event Type:        Error Event Source:    DNS Event Category:                None...

  Hi Everyone, I had a great evening last night at Cardinal Place Microsoft in London. I was presenting at the ADUG ( Active Directory Users Group ) meeting as run by Mark Parris . My session was on AGPM V.30 plus also highlighting some of the key new features that are going to be available in AGPM...

Hello Everyone, I am now back after my summer holidays and various excursions abroad. So I intend to get back to some regular blogging. The Group Policy team have been busy and have now updated collated and made it easier to download the Group Policy Settings spreadsheets into one location. Also the...

I have been tracking this  for a while and I think it is important enough to bring this to your attention as the update has now gone live June 9th  and may when applied have an impact in your environment. The original issue was brought to our attention and publicised by ourselves in this security...

I have been working with 2008 Forests and customers moving towards this environment quite alot recently. Therefore I would like to bring your attention to a newly completed and updated guide which is now available for download; The Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) Branch Office Guide is now live on...

  On the theme of going Virtual and saving all those expensive Travel Costs. Then MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainers) checkout this opportunity to get some excellent online technical and professional training. Being an MCT since 1996  …. :).  I know the value of keeping your skillset up...

Hi Everyone, Hot of the press is the new Active Directory Disaster Recovery Guide which has been updated to reflect new features and functionality you can leverage with 2008. Download it from Here   In particular it talks about; 1. Read Only Domain Controllers considerations for rebuild and recovery...

This has been a question that has come up with several of my customers recently. Therefore I thought this would be a good topic to discuss. Modifying the Schema is something that is a necessary action prior to carrying out installation of Directory Enabled Applications whether they are Microsoft or 3rd...

I had an interesting investigation the other day with a customer of mine with reference to the role and failover of the ISTG role. In the customers scenario they switch off the ISTG and several other servers in a very busy site to simulate a outage scenario. This site is a main hub site in a very large...

Hi myself and a colleague Richard Diver will be talking at the upcoming ADUG as run  Mark Parris on the 15th of June @6.15pm. http://adug.eventbrite.com/ . This will be held at our London Office Microsoft (London) Cardinal Place 100 Victoria Street London, London, City Of SW1E 5JL United Kingdom...

A little while ago I posted about what is considered best practice with regards to the Default Domain Controller policies and Default Domain Policy. http://blogs.technet.com/janelewis/archive/2007/04/24/just-don-t-do-it.aspx At the time I was struggling to find some good examples to back up my post....

The Active Directory 2008 Operations guide is now available for download from this location. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=291bddb7-edc6-4e6d-9852-a9a14991d67c&displayLang=en