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Migrating the configuration from one DHCP to another is much easier than most people think;  you have to be a membe of the local administrators group otherwise the command will fail even if you are a domain administrator. To export all scopes: $ netsh dhcp export c:dhcpdb all To export a ceratin scope: $ netsh …

While this is extremely rare you may encounter a web application that loves to open TCP connections to the point where the default pool of available TCP connections are exhausted. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \System \CurrentControlSet \Services \Tcpip \Parameters] MaxUserPort = 5000  (Max = 65534) Just increase the value from the default 5000. Note: You should investigate if …

Trying to re-install Exchange even after following all MS best practice guidelines fails with the error: To install the first Exchange server in a domain, or to run setup in “/ForestPrep” mode, you must be an Exchange Full Administrator at the organization level. You must use an account that has been granted the Full Exchange …

Do you want to disable IPv6 on all interfaces but find that doing so on the NIC properties in the GUI does not always work properly? The best way to truly disable it is via registry setting: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters] “DisabledComponents”=dword:000000ff This will disable it on all interfaces and force IPv4 preference…

So you want to replicate changes in-’almost’-real-time to your AD sites? While this is not recomended in production enviornments you may have a need to increase replication interval in a lab or development enviornment. You will need some large and reliable connection pipes between your sites to handle the traffic. In order to do this …

Did you ever need to see detailed logs for a user profile?  This is especially useful when dealing with roaming profiles in a citrix enviornment. In the Run dialog box, type regedit, and then click OK Locate the following subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoft WindowsNTCurrentVersionWinlogon Create a new entry named UserEnvDebugLevel of data type REG_DWORD with a value …

The IP address you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter… From time to time you may encounter this error on a newly P2V system. In the past it was a registry fix but now Microsoft has a prefered GUI solution: Click Start, click Run, type cmd.exe Type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 …

Most of the time comandline shutdown is preferd but if you like a GUI tool windows does have one built in. Just run the command $ shutdown /i and you get a nice freindly GUI to do your remote shutdown.

Here is an easy way to set the version of the IE rendering engine.  I prefer the stability and compatibility that the IE 7 mode offers. Open IE 9 Press F12 Choose the appropriate engine to render with under ‘Browser Mode’

One of the easiest ways to see what ports a windows system is listening on is to use netstat. To get a comprehensive list open a command prompt C:\ netstat -anActive ConnectionsProto Local Address Foreign Address StateTCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGTCP 0.0.0.0:445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGTCP 0.0.0.0:1494 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGTCP 0.0.0.0:2598 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGTCP 0.0.0.0:3389 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGTCP 0.0.0.0:8080 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGTCP …

Mark Russinovich makes a strong case for duplicate SID myths that most of us Windows admins have subscribed to–however it never hurts to know how many duplicates you may have. Here is how you check it on your domain. Open a command prompt and type C:\ ntdsutil  and press ENTER. Now type  C:\ security account …

Issue this command to reset GPO settings to their defaults (enter thisas one line): secedit /configure /db reset /cfg “c:windowssecuritytemplatessetup security.inf” /overwrite   Delete the registry.pol file if it exists (enter this as one line): del c:windowssystem32grouppolicymachineregistry.pol   Reboot the server

Assume a trust is setup between Domain Y and Domain X From the Domain Y DC issue the following command C:\ ldifde -f output.ldf -s {FQDN of DCx} -b {user account} {domain}  {password}   Connecting to “FQDN of DCx” Logging in as “user account” in domain “domain” using SSPIExporting directory to file output.ldfSearching for entries…Writing out …

After a snapshot restore in VMware you may encounter secure channel errors. Here is an easy way to reset the SC from the command prompt that can be run either from the domain member or the domain controller. netdom reset “machine name” /domain:”domain name”

This is one of my favorite remote access solutions when I need access to a Windows system from virtually any device.  I can connect to my boxes from my iPhone/Android  via the paid Ignition APP or from the free plugin for IE, Firefox, Chrome running either on a Windows or Linux platform.  The free version …

Warning: These setting affect all packets sent to all destinations and performance can severly be affected. This is registry modification to hardcode specific MTU sices on a particular network interface:   Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. Locate the following key in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSet ServicesTcpipParametersInterfaces On the Edit menu, point …

When I try to set the execution policy from the PowerShell comand window it seems to be a hit-or-miss. Fortunatly modification of the registry value works like a charm everytime.   HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftPowerShell2ShellIdsMicrosoft.PowerShell Locate the string ExecutionPolicy and add the value “Unrestricted“  

While it is rare in Windows 2003 and above to see any TCP stack corruption it does occure every once in a while?  Did you notcie that you can not uninstall the TCP services via the GUI as it is now considered a “core component” of the OS. You can still unisntall this via the …

Here is great and free alternative to WebEx that I use often to support my friends and family.  Mikogo works the same way as a WebEx session and is a great way to remote troubleshoot and end-user desktop.  All the end-user has to do is to click on a link and let Mikogo do the …

Sometimes it is the simplest things that get you.  I was asked to troubleshoot a system that would not register into DNS after a domain migration. The system could ping its new gateway and the new DNS servers–telnet showed access to the new DNS boxes on port 53 and name resolution was functioning correctly other …

Oh the joys that MS Office 2010 brings are endless these days. One of the most frustrating things for me was trying to move my defaults pst file that Outlook creates. I would move it and outlook would re-create a new one in the old location and re-download all my e-mail there. So after some …

Do you need to deploy to a large amount of systems some Trusted Root or Intermediate Authority stores? C:\ Certutil –f –addstore CA .crt Just make the above into a batch file and push via group policy.

This command can not be used on the C: drive. Sceneario: You have just grown the virtual disk of you Windows VM and need to have windows see and utulize the extended free space: Use diskpart that is built-in to windows to do this in a few easy steps. Yous basically do the following: Identify …

To fix a corrupt quorum: C:\ net start clussvc /FIXQUORUMThe Cluster Service service is starting…………..The Cluster Service service was started successfully. If you cannot start the Cluster service, or if you have trouble removing the node, you can manually unconfigure the Cluster service: 1. Run the Cmd.exe program to open a command prompt. 2. At …

One of the quickest and easiest ways to set network configuration on a network adapter is via command line. Lets use the following criteria: We will be setting up Local Are Connection IP: 192.168.200.2 MASK: 255.255.255.0 GW: 192.168.200.1 GW Metric: 1 Here is the syntax for IPv4: $ netsh interface ipv4 show config $ netsh interface ip set …

Hey Firewall Admin–please open up the following ports for me.  Port Protocol Application protocol System service name n/a GRE GRE (IP protocol 47) Routing and Remote Access n/a ESP IPsec ESP (IP protocol 50) Routing and Remote Access n/a AH IPsec AH (IP protocol 51) Routing and Remote Access 7 TCP Echo Simple TCP/IP Services …

So you have users that had been migrated to the trusted domain with their SID histories preserved, and you want to grant those users access to resources in the trusting domain (the former domain of the migrated users) based on the sIDHistory attribute. Always run the command from the ‘trusting’ side: $ netdom trust TrustingDomainName.com …

This is a really simple procedure: Open Group Policy Management. In the console tree, double-click Group Policy Objects in the forest and domain containing the Group Policy object (GPO) into which you want to import settings. Right-click the GPO, and then click Import Settings. Follow the instructions in the Import Settings Wizard, and then click …

So you rebooted your Windows server and NFS did not automatically re-mount itself? To make the NFS share presistent we have to use our old friend net use. C:\ net use /persistent:yes now execute the mount command and windows will keep it as a persistent coneccetion even after re-boot. C:\ mount -u: -p: :/

When you specify \servernamesharename%username% in ADUC it is assumed that you have the correct permissions set on ‘sharename” so that the user’s home folder is properly created. Here are the values that you need to have: NTFS: Special perission on Autehenticated Users group (make sure they apply to “This Folder Only”) Traverse folderExecute file List …

Have you ever needed to change or add permissions to a large number of files and/or folder?  Well you can use the powerful  Subinacl to modify file and directory permissions.  The utility is part of the Microsoft Windows Server Resource Kit For example if I need to grant access to my account for a bunch …

An under utilized Microsoft tools that deserve a mention is Wfetch.  It is provided as part of the IIS  Resource kit and can be downloaded from Microsoft or from here.  This is an invaluable part of your IIS troubleshooting tool kit. Wfetch is a great little tool to see HTTP headers as well as request and associate response …

I was asked to troubleshoot a recently built DNS server that was having some difficulties. One of the errors had me scratching my head for a few minutes. When doing an nslookup the following would be displayed C:\ nslookupDefault Server: UnKnownAddress: 192.168.1.4 As it turns out it’s not really an error –what it is describing is that …

Do you have a huge hibernation file taking up precious space on your SSD c:\ drive? Well most sites seem to advocate the following code: powercfg.exe -h off however this throws an error on Windows 7 Ultimate. You have to issue this without the dash for it to work. C:\ powercfg.exe h off

As a windows administrator I run into multiple scenarios where SSO is required –thus we have to setup UNIX to AD authentication via KERBROS.  This is from the Windows point of view and other steps are required by the UNIX admin to be performed that are not covered here. First create a USER account in …

Have you ever had a problem with linux-headers missing or corrupt?  Usually occurs when trying to recompile VMware on an updated box.  Here is a quick way to update/fix them.   shorvath@jee:$ sudo aptitude install linux-headers-$(uname -r)