Problem Environment Contoso has a very large branch-office deployment of Active Directory. Each branch-office is an Active Directory site, and each DC is a GC because of potentially unreliable WAN links. Any time a Scheme upgrade is performed in which the Partial Attribute Set ( PAS ) is updated, replication...

This tip can help clear some confusion when you encounter the following error while forcing replication: result 8461 The replication operation was preempted Here is the output of running repadmin /showreps on a brand new domain controller: DC=contoso,DC=com 5th_Ward\ContosoDC2 via RPC objectGuid...

Hi Everybody! I just wanted to write a quick note to let you all know that the RODC compatibility pack for Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP clients is available for download. Description of the Windows Server 2008 read-only domain controller compatibility pack for Windows Server 2003 clients and for...

Hi Everybody! This one comes at the request of several customers. Many of you out there are trying to determine which version of Server 2008 you will deploy. For most it comes down to deciding between two of the five major versions: Server 2008 Standard edition and Server 2008 Enterprise edition....

It can be a little tedious to verify replication status in a large Active Directory environment via the Sites and Services snap-in. Here is a command I use quite frequently to check the replication status of all domain controllers: REPADMIN /SHOWREPL * / CSV >showrepl. csv View the file in Microsoft...

For this tip you will need a somewhat newer version of ntfrsutl.exe You can grab a version out of the Service Pack 2 Support Tools download here . Beginning with the version of ntfrsutl.exe in KB 823230 we have the ability to force FRS replication to occur across site boundaries immediately instead...

Some time ago I did a webcast presentation on Active Directory User and Group Restore. I've included the link for those of you that may have missed it. Check out the on-demand presentation here: http://www.msusapartnerreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15004864 (Unfortunately registration...

The helpdesk phone had been ringing incessantly all day. Many people throughout the AD forest were unable to login to their respective domains. It seems that accounts throughout the forest had somehow been deleted. John, tired from having been up all night watching " White and Nerdy ", was called in...

Check out this cool poster size image now available for download from our website. Link courtesy of Michael Kleef . The " Active Directory Component Jigsaw " picture is a pretty cool overview of AD that was originally only available to TechNet Magazine subscribers. Full picture size is over 8 MB. Enjoy...

Just a quick note to say that they did update KB 269229 with my comment about requiring the SERVICE account to be included in the "Impersonate client after authentication" user right. (reference this post for background info) From the article: "Note If you create a Group Policy setting to update...

Users were unable to connect to their shares. John discovered that the Cluster service wasn't started, and that any attempts to start it resulted in an error 1068. He attempted to ping the virtual server's IP address and it returned a "request timed out" message. He got the same error when trying to...

Problem: John was awakened from a dead sleep by the Benny Hill theme ring tone he had just downloaded to his cell phone earlier that evening----one of his junior Network Admins had accidentally deleted one of their larger account OU's. In the blink of an eye five thousand user objects had been removed...