Changes to IIS 7.5 could go a long way with #Windows 2008 R2: http://tinyurl.com/ya5ng3z

Nice YouTube video.  Works for Vista or Server 2008.  Click here.

Security experts generally agree that certificate-based authentication and encryption is far superior to password-based security. Windows operating systems have used certificates of various kinds to secure data communications for years. It was with the introduction of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that Microsoft began to support many types of smart card certificates.  A Windows Server 2003 Certificate Authority could deliver smart card certificates through the use of Enrollment Agents—individuals who have been empowered by an enrollment agent certificate to obtain smartcard certificates for users. A user would meet an enrollment agent in person and submit identification in order to receive a smart card.

Certificate templates on a Certificate Server determine the validity period, encryption strength, and other properties of certificates issued from the template. Windows 2000 used version 1 certificates, Windows XP and Server 2003 used version 2 certificates and Windows Server 2008 and Vista/Windows 7 can use version 3 certificates. Version 3 certificates support stronger encryption by using Suite B algorithms including ECC (elliptic curve cryptography). Server 2008 Certificate Authorities support OCSP (online certificate status protocol), a new way for clients to check to see if a certificate is revoked. Instead of parsing a CRL (certificate revocation list) a client can use OCSP to contact an Online Responder, a webserver-based agent to quickly obtain a certificate’s revocation status. This method is more efficient, and busy environments can be serviced by responder arrays for high capacity and high availability. Online Responders must be authorized by a new Version 3 certificate that attests to the Responders accuracy.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Certification Authority Servers have additional new capabilities such as the ability to do cross-forest enrollments, even cross-forest autoenrollements using Group Policy. Enrollment is the process of requesting and receiving digital certificates from a Certificate Authority. Autoenrollment automates the certificate request using a group policy. Other improvements include a Kerberos certificate that identifies the Domain Controller to the client during Kerberos based authentication. Check out some of the new features at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.05.pki.aspx?pr=blog

-Mark

Been a week or so now since I installed Windows 7. I have to agree it is much better than Vista, it looks like Microsoft have listened this time and made a version of Windows that does what people want. Still waiting for drivers etc. to catch up, but if running on a fairly new machine you should have very few issues. Windows 7 on the desktop and pair that with Server 2008 R2 on the back end and you have a very stable buisness platform. I will update with my real life opinion once I have done some further testing.

Bueno pues el equipo de Microsoft Learning nos comparte un excelente recurso para conocer más de la nueva versión de Windows Server: el e-book de MS Press “Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2” de Charlie Russel y Craig Zacker, que pueden descargar de forma gratuita.

En Windows Server 2008 R2, encontramos un foco importante y mejoras en las áreas de virtualización, administración, plataforma Web, escalabilidad e interoperabilidad con Windows 7.

Entre las características más importantes están:

• DirectAccess: que permite acceder a recursos corporativos de la Intranet, sin necesidad de establecer un canal VPN.
• BranchCache: que optimiza la transferencia datos entre sucursales, reduciendo el consumo de ancho de banda.
• Live Migration: Hyper-V ahora permite tener una infraestructura de virtualización a prueba de fallas.
• Core Parking: que permite apagar dinámicamente procesadores que no estén en uso, para ahorrar energía.
• Mejoras en AD: bandeja de reciclaje para objetos de Directorio Activo y la nueva consola AD Administrative Center.

Así que no dejen pasar esta gran oportunidad y descarguen este grandioso e-book de Windows Server 2008 R2.

Descargalo aquí

By now you have probably heard something about The New Efficiency from Microsoft & you know that you will have to address these changes in the coming years.  If you find yourself wondering what the best strategy for the future is, know that you already have a partner for your Microsoft planning needs in Lewan & Associates.   Here are a few ways we can help you plan for the future.

Executive Briefing Sessions

Our team of sales, management & engineering professionals keep a close eye on every update from our 30+ major technology partners.  If you have specific questions about how your environment will be changing in the future, it is likely we have seen reference architectures, attended manufacturer trainings & tested beta versions of the latest technologies.  Let us help you create a roadmap & help you focus your research efforts on workable solutions.  

Microsoft Health Checks

We can help you maintain maximum efficiency & ideal performance goals, reduce support costs, increase up-time or prepare for upgrades with our Microsoft health check services.  Whether your project involves Windows, Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL, System Center, etc. know that you have a local partner in Lewan to help you reach your goals.  

Unify Communications

Microsoft Exchange 2010 is going to change the way our communications services are managed & delivered to end-users.  This is very apparent if you follow the Unified Communications Blog on Microsoft’s TechNet.  Our experts are ready to help you develop a strategy to integrate Microsoft’s unified communications environment using Microsoft Exchange 2010.  Be aware that Exchange 2010 uses the Active Directory directory service to store and share directory information with Microsoft Windows, meaning the health of your AD environment will be a critical component of your future communications services.  For more information about Active Directory forest design for your Exchange organization, see the Exchange Server Team Blog article.  

Enterprise Social Computing

Improve collaboration, content management, business process, form management and strengthen business intelligence with Microsoft SharePoint Server.  Our engineering resources can help you design, configure & implement a SharePoint site that is custom-tailored for your business’ needs.  Our engineers will work hand-in-hand with your team to ensure complete knowledge transfer and documentation specific to your solution.  To experience the power of SharePoint first hand, check out the SharePoint Community Portal.

So for the past few weeks I have been spending time in one of my spare bedrooms building my “Computer Lab”. Initially this was where I was going to do my computer repairs. I have built it up into a Study/Training Lab aswel as a place to go to do Customer Repairs.

Now and again a friend of mine comes round and we sit in the lab and study what we need to know to better our knowledge. By doing so may just help us get to where we want to be in the IT industry.

We are both Networking Technicians and we consider ourselves good at our job but we still want to keep learning.

This is the kind of Hardware and Software currently in the lab.

The PDC Server (Primary Domain Controller)

1x Rack mount Server – Intel Pentium Dual Core x2 2.80GHz

1GB DDR Ram

x2 500 GB SATA 2 Hard Drives

Windows Server 2003 – Enterprise Edition.

Active Directory/DHCP/DNS/RIS.

Server 2

Intel Xeon x2 900MHz

512 DDR Ram

x2 300 GB SCSI Hard Drives

Windows Server 2003 – Enterprise

BDC (Backup Domain Controller) / DHCP for Imaging /DNS / Active Directory Directory

This server is also in a case that looks like something from Robot Wars.

This server also has software installed called “RM Community Connect 3″ which is most commonly found in educational establishments. It is software that is built Server wide and then deployed to workstations within the local network. Used by Schools / Colleges and Universities all over the world.

Server 3 – Proxy Server

Linux Ubuntu Server (Debian)

Intel Pentium 3 1Ghz CPU

512 SD-RAM

x2 80GB IDE Hard Drives

Yep you guessed it I even went as far as building my own proxy server, when a Network Technician goes to work in a school or college the knowledge of how proxy servers work and how they are used is essential. Proxy Servers keep people online “Safe”.

This server is located in a desktop ATX case.

PC 1

Intel Pentium 3 800 MHz

512 SD-Ram

20 GB Hard drive

Windows XP Pro – SP3

Symantec Anti-Virus

Joined to the domain connected to the PDC.

PC 2

RM – Slimline Desktop PC

Intel Pentium 4 – 2.80 GHz

780 MB DDR Ram

Windows XP Pro – SP3

Joined to the CC3 Domain.

Joining the Lab together and the heart of the Infrastructure is my Cisco 3548 Layer 2/3 Switch. This is a heavy load switch and does the job we want it flawlessly and we wouldn’t have any other make in the Lab as we do a lot of Cisco courses. CIsco are also the best in Networking Manufacturers also .

I have now told you the basics of my Network Lab. Maybe this blog will help you build your own lab ?

If you want some ideas or advice drop me a line.

Catch you later

Chris. IT Networking Technician – http://hullukitservices.is-a-geek.com

CCNA,MCP,

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 (RSAT)

Yes, there I’ve said it, I’m in love with a technology that’s not from AppSense

We had to present at a recent Microsoft Partner event.

Two things Microsoft wanted us to show:

1. License control for Microsoft Apps in Citrix/Terminal Server/VDI/Streamed App environments, and
2. How we can simplify Windows 7 migrations.

After a couple of demos from my trusty partner Jacob, they were also all over us about App-V integration.

There was a problem though – none of my demos were running on Hyper-Wee, I mean Hyper-V (must stop listening to PerfMan, his accent is starting to have an effect on me).

So the challenge.

I don’t normally do much between 12 and 6 in the morning, just lying around the house, so let’s rebuild everything on Windows 2008 and Hyper-V.

So a new disk was already available, remove the old one (Dual boot Vista and Win 2003 running VMware Server for VM’s). Demo laptop is a HP (the best) 6710b 4GB ram Dual core 2.4 GHz, with a 300 GB 7200 rpm disk.

Obtain a license, the media and boot up Windows 2008 – 64 bit – yes that’s right, the person who always said 64 bit was not the answer was now asking the question – can I get 64 bit to run all my apps and more importantly will all my drivers work.

To enable Hyper-V you need 64 bit so there was really no option.

The first thing I noticed, Windows 2008 64 bit took around 20 minutes to load!!!!

I sat there thinking there must be something else I’ve missed, surely you can’t load a new O/S in 20 minutes – including the time to format a 140GB partition !!!

But that was it.

Bit of research on the web and now I have to download and run a service pack to get Hyper-V up and running.

Knew there was a catch – the service pack takes about an hour to install

Still not that much effort and time required to get to a new platform. Now the tricky part, what will be the easiest way to get my demo servers back up and running.

More research – turns out there is a freebee download utility available from here http://vmtoolkit.com/files/folders/converters/entry8.aspx which you point at a VMware VM which converts it to a VHD drive, and voila, it runs on Hyper-V.

I did find some extra info about Vm’s that have a SCSI disk as their base – you need to muck around with them a bit and add an IDE disk, so I decided to convert my VMs that used an IDE drive, and rebuild the ones using SCSI.

The longest part of the process was rebuilding the Windows 2003 DC for my AppSense Management Centre.

One thing I was looking for though - a “sleep” mode so I could have my servers boot quicker. When you are meeting a client the last thing you want to do is spend 15 minutes setting up before you start the preso or demo.

I suppose it’s o.k. if you have a big Irishman with you who can tell bad jokes for a while to distract the client, but most of the time I was by myself at appointments.

By accident I discovered the best feature (in my experience) of Hyper-V. Automatically it will snapshot servers if you turn off the host while they are still running. Very cool.

So here’s how my setup for a demo now goes…

08:30 power on laptop, shake hands, exchange cards

08:31 Login to Windows 2008 64bit

08:33 start Hyper-V consoles for my AppSense Management Centre, and my XP desktop

08:34 Demo Environment Manager Personalisation, the crowd goes…..   Oooh…… AAAAAh

08:35 My work here is done

Well not really, but my point is this sucker boots fast, starts my servers faultlessly, and just works.

Of course I have Performance Manager 64 bit running and I have configured it to favour the VM’s as far as CPU and disk priority goes and this definitely helps.

I’m a bit old school, so if I can get something that works for me, I’ll just stick with it. It takes a rocket – or a Microsoft Partner event – to get me to change.

But now that I’ve jumped the 64 bit fence, I’m glad I’m here

Only thing I do have though, is how do I get my Wireless LAN on my notebook working – damn those 64 bit drivers

You can’t beat free now can you? No, I didn’t think you would think otherwise.

With the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft is giving away for whatever time is left a free ebook, Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2. This isn’t a marketing book, but a deep dive on R2’s new features and capabilities including Hyper-V, RDS virtualization, management, IIS and the new Web application platform.

Here’s the link to the download while it last.

1. Defrag database file

Stop ADDS service ( you can’t use ‘files’ if the service is running)

Go to cmd line and type: ntdsutil

Type activate instance ntds

Type files

Type Compact to %s where %s is a directory location (Ex. Compact to c:\)

Backup system state using wbadmin for DR

Quit out of ntdsutil

Copy compacted ntds.dit file to c:\windows\ntds\

Delete all log files in c:\windows\ntds\ (del c:\windows\ntds\*.log)

2.  Check AD database integrity

Within the Files maintenance section, type integrity.

3. Check AD Consistency

Type Quit to exit out of Files maintenance

Type Semantic Database Analysis

Type Go Fixup (you can enable verbose logging by using the Verbose On command)

Start ADDS service

**Needs to be performed on every DC**

**If the DC isn’t 2008, you need to boot the server up in restore mode to defrag the AD db**

Prereqs: The Forest and Domain functional level must be 2003 or higher.  If you are still at 2000, you will need to use the ldifde utility to restore backlinks.

1. Restart the DC into Domain Service Recovery Mode (F8)
2. Logon with ./Administrator and the Recovery Mode password that was created during DC Promo
3. Type wbadmin get versions to figure out which backup and version number you will use.
4. Type wbadmin start systemstaterecovery -version:<version #> -backuptarget:<backuplocation>
5. Type ntdsutil activate instance NTDS
6. Type authoritative restore
7. Depending on what you need to restore, you can either use restore object or restore subtree

Ex. Restore subtree “ou=Users,ou=location,dc=domain,dc=com”

If your domain is 2000 functional level, run the following steps after the steps above:

1. repadmin /syncall DCNAME /a /d /A /P /q where DCNAME is the name of the DC you just restored

2. Change to the location where your ldif file is located, should be in the same location of where your log files are from the restore.

3. Type ldifde -i -k -f filename where filename is the ldif file.

4. Rinse and repeat stpes for multiple ldif files.

Here are two PowerShell scripts to reset the local administrator password on multiple machines.  The first one seaches an OU with a filter on objectClass=Computer and prompts for a new password.  The second script you use a text file imported with computer names which the script reads from.  Either way works, I prefer the first.

## This variable creates the LDAP connection to Servers, you must enter in the correct DN name of the OU you will be using.
$objDomain = [adsi] (“LDAP://OU=Servers,OU=OU,dc=domain,dc=local”)

$objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher
$objSearcher.SearchRoot = $objDomain
$objSearcher.PageSize = 1000
$objSearcher.Filter = ‘(objectClass=Computer)’
#$objsearch.propertiestoload.add(“name”)
$colResults = $objSearcher.FindAll()

$password = read-host “Please type in the new password.”

$erroractionpreference = “SilentlyContinue”
foreach ($Computer in $colResults) {   
    $ServerName = $($Computer.properties.name).ToUpper()       
    $ping = new-object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping   
    $Reply = $ping.send($ServerName)       

        if($Reply.status -eq “success”) {       
            Write-Host “$ServerName is online”       
            $Admin=[adsi](“WinNT://” + $ServerName + “/administrator, user”)       
            $Admin.PSBase.Invoke(“SetPassword”, $password)               

            # Verify password was just changed       
            $PasswordAge = $Admin.PasswordAge               
            If($PasswordAge -ne $null) {                       
            Write-Host “$ServerName password change SUCCEEDED”               
            } Else {           
                Write-Host “$ServerName password change FAILED”               
            }   
            } Else {       
                Write-Host “$ServerName is not online – skipping”       
            }
        }

#This script will change the local adminstrator password for every machine in serverlist.txt
#Only if the server is online via ping request

$erroractionpreference = “SilentlyContinue”

##for <directorylocal> type in the correct location of the serverlist.txt
foreach ($Computer in get-content <directorylocal>\serverlist.txt) {   
    $ServerName = $Computer.ToUpper()       
    $ping = new-object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping   
    $Reply = $ping.send($Computer)       

        if($Reply.status -eq “success”) {       
            Write-Host “$ServerName is online”       
            $Admin=[adsi](“WinNT://” + $Computer + “/administrator, user”)     

##replace –-password—with the actual password  
     $Admin.PSBase.Invoke(“SetPassword”, “–password–”)               

            # Verify password was just changed       
            $PasswordAge = $Admin.PasswordAge               
            If($PasswordAge -ne $null) {                       
            Write-Host “$ServerName password change SUCCEEDED”               
            } Else {           
                Write-Host “$ServerName password change FAILED”               
            }   
            } Else {       
                Write-Host “$ServerName is not online – skipping”       
            }
        }

Microsoft এর ওয়েব সাইট থেকে যারা SERVER 2008 ডাউনলোড করেছেন, তারা একটু লক্ষ্য করলে দেখবেন এটি Bootable না। SERVER 2008 এর Bootable ডিক্স তৈরি করার জন্য প্রথমে ডাউনলোডকৃত ISO ফাইলটি D ড্রাইভে Downloads ফোল্ডারে copy করুন। এরপর -

১. । নিচের লিংক হতে CDIMAGE.EXE ফাইলটি ডাউনলোড করুন।

২. । মনেকরি CDIMAGE.EXE ফাইলটি D ড্রাইভে Downloads ফোল্ডারের মধ্যে আছে।

৩. Command Prompt চালু করে নিচের Command টি লিখে Enter Press করুন।

D:\Downloads>CDIMAGE.EXE -m -u2 –b “D:\Downloads\boot\etfsboot.com” “D:\Downloads” D:\Mamun_Server2008.iso

৪.। Done লেখা আসলে Command Prompt বন্ধ করুন।

৫. । দেখুন D ড্রাইভে Mamun_Server2008 নামে একটি iso ফাইল তৈরি হেয়েছে।এটিই SERVER 2008 এর Bootable ফাইল।

ফাইলটি DVD তে বার্ন করে ব্যবহার করুন।

Downlink Link

Overview of what applications are supported to run with a Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) implementation.

1.Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server
2.Microsoft Office Live Communications Server
3.Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS)
4.Microsoft Office Outlook
5.Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM)
6.Windows SharePoint Services
7.Microsoft SQL Server 2005
8.Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS)
9.Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS)
10.Credential Roaming
11.Distributed File System (DFS)
12.Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) and File Replication Service (FRS)
13.Domain Name System (DNS)
14.Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
15.Group Policy
16.Internet Authentication Service
17.Internet Information Services (IIS)
18.Network Access Protection (NAP)
19.Terminal Services (Users and Computers snap-in)
20.Terminal Services Licensing server

Note:Exchange isn’t on the list. In fact, you can’t run Exchange (2000, 2003, 2007) if there’s only a RODC it can connect to. Exchange needs a full-DC around to function correctly.
Reference:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732790(WS.10).aspx

Sysinternals  offers a free P2V tool Called Disk2VHD that creates VHDs (Virtual Hard Disks) of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC and/or Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs).  You can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online, since it uses Windows Volume Snapshot (VSS) capability, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include.

To use VHDs produced by Disk2vhd, create a VM with the desired characteristics and add the VHDs to the VM configuration as IDE disk(s).
On first boot, a VM booting a captured copy of Windows will detect the VM’s hardware and automatically install drivers, if present in the image. If the required drivers are not present, install them via the Virtual PC or Hyper-V integration components.

You can also attach to VHDs using the Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Disk Management or Diskpart utilities.

Download here

For more information: Sysinternals website