Call me rash and impulsive, but the other day I blew away XP and installed Windows Server 2008 x64 Standard Edition on my Dell Latitude D830 laptop. Other than idle curiosity, the main driver behind my foolishness was the need to create some demo machines using Hyper-V. I don’t have any other hardware that… Read More »
Earlier this week, John Christie posted a question to the mailing list at ActiveDir.org on the topic of the history of Active Directory. If you’re not already subscribed to the list, the full thread can be found here: http://www.activedir.org/ListArchives/tabid/55/forumid/1/postid/29103/view/topic/Default.aspx The most interesting and authoritative response was from Don Hacherl, as shown in full below.… Read More »
The long awaited new version of Microsoft’s Active Directory Migration Tool is now available for download from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ae279d01-7dca-413c-a9d2-b42dfb746059&displaylang=en The most important feature of the new version is is the ability to migrate to Windows Server 2008 Functional Level domains. This was not possible with version 3.0. If you need to copy passwords as part… Read More »
Those of you familiar with Darren Mar-Elia’s excellent resource site GPOGUY.COM will notice the site has had a complete face-lift. This comes as part of a recent collaboration with the ActiveDir.org AD resource site. I’d like to say it was all my own work, but Matty Holland deserves the kudos for developing the shared… Read More »
The much-hyped iPhone launched in New Zealand on Friday last week to muted enthusiasm. While the Kiwi geek collective loves the technology, the pricing offered by Vodafone (the sole carrier offering the iPhone in NZ) leaves much to be desired. Across the ditch in Australia iPhone packages are more attractive, with competition between Optus,… Read More »
Have you noticed that sometimes SQL Server Management Studio takes a really long time to start up? I’ve found it can take up to half a minute or longer, which is really annoying if you tend to use it regularly. A few weeks back I was doing some work on a customer site with Tracey… Read More »
One of the improvements to Active Directory Users and Computers (DSA.MSC) in Windows Server 2008 is the "protection from accidental deletion" feature. This blog article explains what the feature is and how it works under the hood. Probably the most common cause of restore operations in AD is accidental deletion of objects. Administrators with fat… Read More »
Those of you already familiar with Windows Server 2008 will know that one of the key Active Directory-related improvements is the introduction of the Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC). With the RODC comes the ability to separate administrative roles. This removes the restriction of having to use a Domain Administrators account when carrying out administrative tasks… Read More »
Today I installed Outlook 2007 on a test machine and enabled the RSS defaults. An hour or so later I noticed that the Junk Mail folder contained 60 items. Curious as to what might be in there so quickly, I found it was RSS items from MSNBC.com. Interesting that one Microsoft product considers… Read More »
I sometimes have to work in environments where I have to use the customer’s PC instead of my laptop. This can be quite frustrating as my laptop is quite heavily customised and has all the tools that I need. One thing I find problematic is having to work with scripts (especially VBScript) without a… Read More »