TechNet Magazine Blog

Proxy authentication lets users perform a simple bind to an Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services instance but still have an association to an Active Directory account. This can be very useful: it gives developers full access to a user object without giving them access to the Active Directory account, and it allows products that require the X.500 format to be used with Active Directory. Ken St. Cyr describes what you need to know about proxy authentication. 

The latest installment of our online-only Sustainable Computing column is now available.

Find out how you can:

• Bring Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Power Management Settings into Compliance
• Bring Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Power Management Settings into Compliance
• Enforce Energy-Efficient Architectures with Microsoft System Center
• Use System Center Capacity Planner 2007 to Plan and Optimize your Infrastructure
• Gain Insight into your Environment with System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• Work with Microsoft Assessment Configuration Pack for ENERGY STAR Power Management to determine whether systems adhere to the ENERGY STAR guidelines

Check out the article now so you can learn how to manage power configurations throughout your infrastructure, reduce your power usage, save money, and reduce your organization's carbon footprint.

The complexity of systems today makes troubleshooting more difficult than ever. It’s harder to keep track of what has changed, when, and how that relates to everything else. If something goes wrong, chances are good that users will have a hard time figuring out what has changed on their computers, whether due to updates, new software, or new hardware. As Lance Whitney describes , the free Change Analysis Diagnostic tool can help users figure out what’s going when they experience problems because of such changes.

Have various workers in your company been showing up with questions about Macs? The odds of having a homogeneous network today are very unlikely. Macs are becoming increasingly popular and chances are if you don't already have some on your network, soon you will. 

Don't consider this a burden. This actually creates a fantastic opportunity for you as an IT professional. Instead of being an administrator who says "I don't do Mac," you can be the IT guy who can do whatever the organization needs—whether it be supporting Macs or Windows PCs. And this will greatly increase your value to the organization.

And best of all, the current Mac client is fairly easy to support and is surprisingly similar to the Windows computers you are already familiar with.

In the December issue of TechNet Magazine, which focuses on InterOp, Don Jones gives a crash course in managing Macs. Learn how to set up a Mac on your network, troubleshoot network problems, share files and folders among Macs and Windows-based systems, and configure Macs to use use network printers.

Did you just go “whoa!” when you saw that title? Bet you never thought you’d see that here! But the times, as they say, are a-changing and we have too. Many organizations today use multiple operating systems. We all have the same goal of providing high-quality, cost-effective IT services to the organization, and one way we can do that is by sharing core software infrastructure like Active Directory. If your company uses both Windows and Linux, integrating Linux authentication with Active Directory can reduce the effort you spend managing multiple user accounts, improve system security, and provide you with a single identity store to manage and audit. These are all pretty compelling reasons to give it a try, and author Gil Kirkpatrick shows you how .

The December 2008 issue of TechNet
Magazine is now available online. And
it's filled with information about interop.

Find out how to integrate Linux clients
with Active Directory, Manage Macs in
a Windows environment, and more.

FEATURE ARTICLES                                                                  
Authenticate Linux Clients with Active Directory
Many IT shops are divided into two camps—the Windows team and the Linux team—but we all have the same ultimate goal of providing high-quality and cost- effective IT services. One way you can do this is by sharing core software infrastructure. Think Windows and Linux don’t mix? See how you can configure Linux machines to use Active Directory for authentication.

Managing Macs in Your Windows Environment
Today, the likelihood of a homogeneous network has become increasingly remote. It’s in your interest not to limit yourself to a single platform. Instead, you can be known as the IT guy who can do whatever needs to be done—whether it be supporting Mac or Windows. Don Jones teaches what you need to know to set up a Mac on your Windows network, troubleshoot network problems, share files and folders among Macs and Windows-based systems, and configure Macs to use your network printers.

Interacting with Windows from a Mac Environment
How times have changed! These days it is fairly easy to bring Macs into your Windows network infrastructure. And with a little work you can even integrate  some of the operating system services. Learn how to connect Macs to Active Directory, see how you can use Entourage with Exchange, integrate the Messenger for Mac 7 application with your Windows-based communications, and explore how you can  bridge the platforms with virtualization.

Managing the Root Password on Your Mac
How do you give your Mac users the rights they need on an as-needed basis and improve security at the same time? Surprisingly, by enabling the root account. Find out how.

Understanding Proxy Authentication in AD LDS
Proxy authentication lets users perform a simple bind to an Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services instance but still have an association to an Active Directory account. This can be very useful: it gives developers full access to a user object without giving them access to the Active Directory account, and it allows products that require the X.500 format to be used with Active Directory. Here’s what you need to know about proxy authentication.

COLUMNS                                                                                   
Toolbox: New Products for IT Pros
Greg Steen looks at managing your environment with Desktop Authority, checking site links with Xenu Link Sleuth, and managing partitions with GParted Live. Greg also discusses the book “How to Cheat at Administering Office Communications Server 2007”.

SQL Q&A: Row-Overflow, Differential Backups, and More
Paul Randal answers your questions about SQL Server. In this installment, Paul discusses the row-overflow feature, database mirroring and automatic failovers, backup strategies, and managing workloads and memory for failover scenarios.

Utility Spotlight: Change Analysis Diagnostic
See how the Change Analysis Diagnostic tool can help users discover system changes on their computers (from updates, new software, and changed hardware) and resolve problems they may encounter due to these changes.

Inside SharePoint: Enterprise Project Management with SharePoint
Microsoft Office Project Server (MOPS) 2007 is extremely complex and difficult to deploy. Yet the effort is worthwhile—MOPS inherits the strengths of SharePoint as an enterprise platform, allowing you to increase the efficiency of team collaboration within and across departments. This article discusses some of the challenges you’ll face when deploying MOPS.

Windows PowerShell: Building a Better Inventory Tool
Following up on the November installment of his Windows PowerShell column, Don Jones demonstrates an even better inventorying tool and demonstrates a sound process for building your own custom Windows PowerShell functions.

Hey, Scripting Guy!: Calculating Server Uptime
You need to calculate server downtime in order to report on server uptime. The  Scripting Guys have a Windows PowerShell script that can do this for you.

Security Watch: Revisiting the 10 Immutable Laws of Security, Part 3
It's been about 8 years since "The 10 Immutable Laws of Security" were first published, and a lot has changed since then. In part three of this series, Jesper Johansson wraps up his analysis of the immutable laws to see if they still hold true after all this time.

Field Notes: Prep Your Patch Policy
Without a thorough and consistent service pack policy, an organization runs the risk of disruptions and downtime. This is because systems throughout the organization may have different patches installed. The key is to think outside your domain.

Windows Confidential: Keep Your Caches Close
Raymond Chen looks at how a poorly implemented proxy server can completely nullify the benefits of a proxy server.

ON THE WEB                                                                              
Streaming Video: Building a Better Inventory Tool
Following up on the previous installment of his Windows PowerShell column, Don Jones shows you how to make an even better inventorying tool. And, in doing so, he demonstrates a sound process for building your own custom Windows PowerShell functions.

Online Exclusive Article: Managing the Root Password on Your Mac
How do you give your Mac users the rights they need on an as-needed basis and improve security at the same time? Surprisingly, by enabling the root account. Find out how.

Last year around this time, TechNet Magazine featured an article about the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report - a comprehensive study by the Microsft Malware Protection Center of the computer security landscape. Well, the latest SIR (volume 5) has just been released, and it's packed with a detailed analysis of current threats, as well as updates on available countermeasures. Head over to microsoft.com/sir or download a PDF of the full report to dig into this very valuable information.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is the Microsoft implementation of Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM)—a technology that lets you access information about the objects in your enterprise environment that have to be managed, such as systems, applications, networks, devices, and other managed components. Not surprisingly, the information is accessible via script and, in this issue, the Scripting Guys both introduce you to the WMI infrastructure and provide some scripts that you’ll find very helpful in learning more about WMI.

You’ll find lots more information about WMI on our site. Here’s just a sample:

Unlocking the Mystery of WMI Events in MOM

Windows Powershell The WMI Connection

Utility Spotlight WMI Code Creator

In every issue of TechNet Magazine, Greg Steen (a practicing IT professional) discusses free and relatively inexpensive tools and utilities that help him do his IT work and "getting the job done." 

In the November issue, Greg looks at mapping data graphically with MapForce, creating and managing regular expressions using Expresso (a free utility), and querying and navigating Active Directory with Active Directory Query. Greg also explores the book Crimeware: Understanding New Attacks and Defenses.

In this month’s TechNet Magazine, you’ll find the second of a series of Field Notes columns written by Romi Mahajan, Chief Marketing Officer of Ascentium Corporation. As an early innovator in the field of electronic communications, Romi has been exploring the social and political implications of the possibilities of communication stemming from new technologies. In the first of this six-part series, Romi discussed creating a work environment where management encourages innovation and embraces community. This month Romi delved deeper into the concept of community in the workplace, as well as in our society in general. Rather than replacing our traditional sense of community, the Internet and social networking have simply enhanced and broadened the possibilities--it can never take the place of discussions and interactions in person.

In future installments Romi will discuss theories of change, why IT matters, strategic vision, and more. If your company’s IT department is doing something particularly innovative or challenging, we’d love to hear about it.

-Joan Levinson

Have you ever wondered why you sometimes get a message that says Windows can't replace a file that is currently in use? In the November 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Raymond Chen looks at the underlying reason for this and explains why it would be more accurate to say Windows can but has chosen not to replace a file that is in use. 

Want to be proactive about preventing data loss? Enterprise rights management is the way to go. Discover how   the Microsoft Enterprise Rights Management solution can protect your organization's information from unauthorized access and use.

In the November 2008 installment of our Windows PowerShell column (which is available online), Don Jones demonstrates how to create a tool that will inventory the operating system build number (this is one of the best ways to determine the OS version) and service pack version number from a list of computers. 

This is a very useful tool in itself.  More importantly, however, Don uses this example to walk you through the process he uses to develop a script. After all, the process can be applied to countless projects you might encounter. Once you understand and can reuse this development process for your own tasks, you'll be well on your way to solving nearly any administrative problem using Windows PowerShell.

Don has also provided a video screencast in which he demonstrates this Windows PowerShell-based inventory tool and guides you through the process he used to build it.

In the era of Software-plus-Services, Web services play an important role because they decouple hosted back-end environments from on-premise front-end applications. Explore  how the SharePoint platform drives online collaboration, so that Office applications and add-ins can run on local workstations while Web services in combination with other Web technologies provide access to features and data in distributed environments.

"For developers, one difficult problem in SQL Server is tracking what data has changed in a database. An even greater challenge is architecting a simple solution that doesn’t heavily impact workload performance and isn't difficult to create, implement, and manage. So why go to all the trouble to track changes? Is tracking changes really worth all this effort? Two commonly cited examples are to support updates to a data warehouse and to support the synchronization of heterogeneous, occasionally connected systems." --Paul Randal

SQL Server 2008 introduces two new features that allow you to track changes more easily and efficiently.

In the November 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Paul Randal examines the new Change Tracking and Change Data Capture features and discusses the implications these features will have for database administrators.

We also have a video screencast of Paul demonstrating how you can use the new Change Data Capture feature in SQL Server 2008 to track changes in your database.

And you can read the full article and watch the video online now.