Jason Yoder, MCT

I'm happy to say that last night, after instructing class, I passed exam 70-680 for Windows 7 Configuration. Windows 7 is an exciting new product that offers greater stability then its predecessors and more tools to reduce cost in the Enterprise environment. I am adding course 6292: Installing and Configuring Windows 7 Client to the MCT Expert course offerings. This 3 day course will help get you started with the new features of Windows 7 and also get the wheels in your head spinning as to the possibilities it offers you. For booking information, please visit my website.

PowerShell offers us the ability to manage very detailed and technical aspects of our clients in a standard way. Well, until you get to Active Directory. As part of PowerShell V1, Microsoft omited this seemingly obvious need. Would it be part of PowerShell V2? Nope. Instead I think that Microsoft followed the first rule of Computer Science "Never reinvent the wheel." What I mean by that is that third party vendors already did that for Microsoft so there was no need for Microsoft to invest the resources. The first link below talks about a free Powershell Snapin from Quest that handles AD management in PowerShell. The second like is the link to the down load. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/winpsh/tools/cmdlets.mspx `http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

This one actually happened to me one morning in class. nothing like having an your Hyper-V give you a brand new error right in front of your students. Considering I've been using Hyper-V for many months without issue, this was a surprise. I discovered that the problem actually was because the server did not pick up the USB hard drive that I was using for this set of VMs . Once the server recognized the USB drive, I had to restart the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service.

Be careful with Priceline . I checking into my hotel yesterday here in Ft. Wayne Indiana where I am instructing this week. I got a nasty surprise. Priceline booked me into a smoking room. Luckily for me there was a non-smoking room available . I had completely forgot to call the hotel to ensure that I did not get a smoking room. When I do my initial search on priceline to see what hotels are available , I make sure that the hotels at the star level that I am choosing have non-smoking rooms available . Once the reservation is made, I call what ever hotel that accepted my bid and make sure 2 things happen: 1) It is a non-smoking room. 2) I am not looking/listening to an interstate.

No you do not. I tested this out in Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V. I utilized two virtual machines. The first was a Windows 2008 R2 Server configured as a domain controller. The other was a Windows 2003 server configured as a member server. On the DC, I executed the command Get-Service –ComputerName CoomputerName . The result was a listing of the services running on the 2003 server. To verify that I was indeed getting results from the other server, I executed these two lines. $A = Get-Service –ComputerName CoomputerName $A = Get-Service $A.count $B.count What this did was place the returned objects from the remote computer into variable $a and the objects from the local computer in to variable $B. I then used the Count property of each to verify that I had different numbers.

With over 2400 possible GPO objects (and counting), it is difficult to know what objects exist without manually going through a GPO and looking at all of them. I recommend using Bing or Google and asking "How do it (insert issue here) in group policy?" But if you like doing more detailed research, below are some links that can help. Group Policy Home Page: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/grouppolicy/default.aspx Group Policy Settings Reference for Vista/2008: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2043b94e-66cd-4b91-9e0f-68363245c495&displaylang=en Group Policy Settings Reference for 2003: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7821C32F-DA15-438D-8E48-45915CD2BC14&displaylang=en

Group Policy Preferences allow you to save a lot of time scripting, I set what you want via a graphical interface. Preferences are what you would like the user to have where as policies are what you tell the user they will have. In Windows Server 2008, edit a GPO. Under both the computer and user configurations you will see Policies and Preferences. Ex pand preferences and let the wheels start turning in your head. You must install software on your XP and Vista clients to use Group Policy Preferences. The following blog article gives you more detailed instructions and where to get the software. http://blogs.technet.com/grouppolicy/archive/2009/03/27/group-policy-preferences-not-applying-on-some-clients-client-side-extension-xmllite.aspx

PowerShell V2 is already installed on Windows Server 2008 R2. The ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) however, is not. To installed the PowerShell ISE: · Open Server Manager · Click Features · Click Add Features · Check Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) · Click Next · Click Install · Click Close . You will find it in All Programs à Accessories à Windows PowerShell

When you create a shared folder using the Share and Storage Management MMC, you can specify what protocol that you want to use. By default, SMB will be used. This what you want to use for Windows networks. If you are sharing your data with a UNIX system, then select NFS protocol. Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753731.aspx

By request, 2277: Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Microsoft ® Windows Server 2003 ™ Network Infrastructure: Network Services has been added to my course offerings. Evening thought Windows 2003 has been around for a while, many organizations are sticking to it through these tough economic times. So, I'll continue to instruct Windows 2003 courses as long as my clients request them.

It’s here! PowerShell for Server Core. This is just a quick lesson in how to install it. So, how do you get it? Once you get Windows Server 2008 Core R2 installed, Type OCLIST . We need to make sure that the following is installed: • NetFx2-ServerCore (There may be additional characters after this) • MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell If you are missing any of these two, install them with the instructions below. Don’t forget, these are case sensitive. For NetFx2-ServerCore OCSetup NetFX2-ServerCore For MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell OCSetup MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell OK, now that the software is installed, navigate to c:\Windows\System32\WIndowsPowerShell\V1.0 . Once there, type PowerShell you will notice that the prompt changes to PS . Go ahead and type Get-Command and press Enter If this worked, PowerShell is installed. It is not going to be the pretty blue window, but inside the command prompt. Go ahead and type Write-Host –fore blue “Hello World” and press Enter . You will s

Windows Server operating systems utilize domain controllers for manage the networks communications and security. All the DCs work together to make the network majic happen. There are some roles that cannot be shared and must be localized on one domain controller. These roles are called the Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles. They include: · Schema: Used to expand the schema. · Domain Naming Master: Adds or removes domain or application partitions from active directory. · RID Master: allows new or existing DCs the ability to create user, computer, and security groups. · PDC Emulator: Send updates to legacy operating systems and is used by to update user and computer passwords. · Infrastructur master: Required to run ADPREP /ForestPrep . When a DC holding a FSMO role is unexpectedly lost, your network can experience problems. For normal down time, you transfer these roles using the graphical interface whi

Today the MCTExpert Blog is 1 year old. I want to thank all of my readers for the support over the past year that I have been doing this. It has been a great outreach for me to continue to serve my students after class and obviously a source of information for many others. So far this blog has reached 110 countries and 49 states. It has also been translated into 37 different languages. Over the course of the next year, I'll continue to post the questions that my students ask. The questions that the everyday Network Administrator wants answered. I know that these tips have helped many and I hope they continue to do so long into the future.