A Day In The Life of a Premier Field Engineer

Group Policy Settings References for Windows and Windows Server

2009-11-09T13:33:00Z

I wanted to share the download link for group policy settings reference for Windows and Windows Server.

These spreadsheets list the configuration settings for users and computers that can be set within Group Policy.

Click here to be taken to the download site.

Enjoy!

Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM

2009-08-14T21:43:00Z

I wanted to let everyone know that the bits for Server 2008 R2 (RTM) is now available on MSDN and Technet. This is a week earlier than expected.

Enjoy!

Storage Server 2008

2009-05-19T22:15:00Z

I wanted to share some information about Storage Server 2008.

First, did you know that Storage Server 2008 has a default password when you install it? Well, I wasn't aware of this until I recently installed this to do some testing. I would imagine there are a lot of people who are not aware of this since in every other version of Windows Server that I have installed you either get to set the password or it makes you change it the first time you login.

The default password is: wSS2008!

I highly recommend you changing this password once your install has finished.

The second thing I wanted to touch on was that you can now download Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.2 for Storage Server 2008 via MSDN or Technet. As the name implies this gives you the ability to make your server an iSCSI target without having to purchase 3rd party software. This is very useful when you need a shared storage solution for clustering in Windows Server.

Th iSCSI Software Target is available in x86 and x64.

Well that is it for today. Until next time...

Using LDIFDE to export users from Active Directory

2009-02-20T01:55:00Z

Today we will be discussing how to export users from Active Directory. I will be using the ldifde command to perform this operation. LDIFDE is a command line utility that is used to import or export information from Active Directory. Warning : Before attempting this please make sure you have a valid backup. When exporting users from Active Directory it is recommended to know what attributes are needed. By having this information ahead of time you will ensure you only have the data that is needed....(read more)

A simple guide to digitally signing software for Vista

2008-12-22T22:14:00Z

Today I will be discussing how to digitally sign software for Vista. I had to put these directions together for a customer and I thought I would share them.

When digitally signing software for Vista you should meet the following requirements:

A valid code signing certificate from a CA that is trusted within your environment - Please click here to read how to setup an Enterprise CA
The certificate must be installed on the workstation/server that you are performing the following steps
Windows SDK - The SDK can be downloaded HERE

Once you have met the above requirements you can proceed to the following steps.

1. Click on Start, All Programs, Microsoft Windows SDK and click CMD Shell
2. At the cmd prompt type "cd bin"
3. Type "signtool.exe signwizard" - Click next on the following Welcome screen

4. Select the file that you want to digitally sign and click Next

5. To keep this simple we will select Typical and click Next

6. The following 2 screens are asking for the certificate you would like to use to sign the software. Click on Select from Store and highlight your certificate and click Ok.

7. The following screen is requesting optional information on the data you are signing. You can opt to fill it in or not fill it in and click Next.

8. When signing a software/driver package, you should always use the option to timestamp the signature. This timestamp specifies when the signature was created. If a certificate expires or is revoked for security reasons, then only signatures created before the expiration or revocation are valid. If a timestamp is not included in the signature, then Windows cannot determine if the package was signed before or after the expiration or revocation, and will reject the signature. You can use the following timestamp service Url: http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timestamp.dll

To add the timestamp url, check the box "Add a Timestamp to the data" and put in a valid url and click Next.

9. At this point you have almost finished digitally signing your software. Click Finish.

10. After clicking Finish a dialog box will appear requesting access to a protected item. Click Ok.

11. Now you have completed digitally signing software for Vista. Click Ok.

Note: If you would like to verify your signature you can right click on the file that was just signed and go to properties. Within the properties tab you will now have a Digital Signatures tab. You can click that tab and see your digital signature.

That concludes how to digitally sign software for Vista.