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  • Blog

    Active Directory Replication Troubleshooting

    With Active Directory having a decentralized database, healthy replication is extremely important to ensuring it functions correctly.  Replication problems can lead to all sorts of issues, including authentication failures, machines falling off the domain, or worse.  Let’s take a look at some ways to diagnose and troubleshoot basic replication problems. Replication Health Review Before doing anything else,…

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    Testing File Server Performance

    Measuring file server performance can be a little tricky.  To simulate real-world usage, testing a file share from a client on the network is the best way to get a good look at the expected speeds.  However, that test will traverse multiple layers, with the overall speed limited to the slowest link.  At the lowest…

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    Using and Understanding DCDiag

    DCDiag is the comprehensive, built-in utility for checking the health of an Active Directory Domain Controller.  This command runs 20+ checks against the selected DC including DNS health, replication health, general errors, and more.  Here, we’ll look at how to use the command effectively and how to read its output. Command Parameters The DCDiag command…

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    Beginning IoT – Installing Windows 10 IoT Core on an x86/x64 Device

    This is the second part in a 2-part series on how to install Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Core on an Internet-of-Things (IoT) device. Part 1 described how to install Windows 10 IoT Core on a Raspberry Pi 3 device. This article will focus on the steps required to install Windows 10 IoT Core on an x86/x64 device. …

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    AD Sites & Services

    Configuring Active Directory Sites & Services is an important, but sometimes mishandled, part of administering a domain.  The information in Sites & Services is used by AD to create a replication topology, determine which DCs should authenticate clients, and help users connect to applications and services.  Sites & Services being misconfigured can result in increased…

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    PowerShell Basics – Command Structure

    Although you’ve almost certainly used PowerShell by now, you may not be comfortable writing your own commands and scripts.  With PowerShell being the de facto scripting platform for Windows administration, being able to confidently write and execute your own scripts is an invaluable skill.  As networks get larger and larger, the need to increase efficiency…

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    Domain Controller Selection

    The process of a Windows client selecting an Active Directory domain controller isn’t too complex but is often not fully understood.  Let’s look at the way a member server chooses a DC and how this affects applications. Why it Matters Windows will optimize connections to the best available domain controller for the following types of…

    Concurrency
  • Blog

    Removing Ghost Mailboxes from Exchange with Remove-Mailbox and -StoreMailbox

    I ran into an absolutely crazy issue which involved Exchange 2010 and a group of “ghost” mailboxes.  The specifics were that the mailboxes showed up in Get-MailboxStatistics reports on the databases, but were not connected, “Deleted”, or “Soft Deleted”.  They were not visible in the console, or during a Get-Mailbox command, through either their GUID…

    Nathan Lasnoski
  • Blog

    Policy Analyzer

    Policy Analyzer is a tool released a couple of years ago that allows an administrator to easily compare two or more GPOs to find the differences between them.  It’s a little clunky to use for quick troubleshooting, but for in-depth GPO work, this is a great tool for helping review and organize GPOs.  Here, we’ll…

    Concurrency