I’ve been involved in Windows 7 deployments since the Beta came out in 2009 and before Windows 7 there was Vista, XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT and even Windows 3.11 and although over time the technology has changed the basic challenges of every migration remained the same. If today someone asks me what I consider [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Active Directory category.
Windows 8 Active Directory based volume activation
Windows Server 8 comes with a new role called Volume Activation Services. The Volume Activation Service allows IT administrators to enable volume activation for domain joined systems using a Key Management Service Host (KMS) or Active Directory based Activation. This means in theory that going forward there is no need anymore to install and manage [...]
ToolTip: AD Photo Edit
Last night I came across this FREE utility called AD Photo Edit developed by Chris Wright which allows you to upload your picture into Active Directory. The result of doing that is that people who use Outlook 2010 can see your profile picture in the mail you send them. Using AD Photo Edit is simple, [...]
Get the latest version of the GPOTool.exe
The latest version of the GPOtool is the one that is included within the Microsoft Windows 2003 Resource kit. That’s what we all used to know. BUT hey I just figured out a few days ago that there is actually an official newer version around it’s included within the Microsoft Product Reports Utility. Here’s how [...]
Have you checked your Group Policy Health lately?
Group Policies are an essential part of every Windows Client infrastructure and it’s therefore critical to regularly spend some effort to ensure that things are in a healthy state. I would define a healthy Group Policy infrastructure as following: All Group Policies are correctly synched across all domain controllers There are no unlinked Group Policies [...]
ReadTip: Best Practice: Active Directory Structure Guidelines
Alan Burchill author of the Group Policy Center blog has posted 2 great articles on Best Practices for Active Directory Structures. Best Practice:Active Directory Structure Guidelines – Part 1 Best Practice: Group Policy Design Guidelines – Part 2
ToolTip: Microsoft Product Support Reports and Microsoft Product Support Reports Viewer
If you get tasked to do some system troubleshooting and you just want to get as many information possible from a client, then have a look at the Microsoft Product Support Report Tool and the Product Support Reports Viewer. The Microsoft Product Support Reports Viewer 2.0 can be downloaded from here and the Microsoft Product [...]
Extending User Information in AD – 64 Bit support
Back in 2008 I wrote about Extending User Information in AD. Today I came across a blog post mentioning that there is now an unsupported 64 bit version available. More details and download here
Windows ActiveX Installer Service
Managing ActiveX Components within an enterprise sometimes can be a pain. Users with standard user privileges by default can’t install ActiveX components, hence whenever a larger group of users require an ActiveX component you usually end up creating a software package and distribute it via Software Distribution or you provide them with temporary Administrative rights. [...]
