Windows

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve passed the 70-649, which gives me the following MCTS certifications: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuration Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration Next I’ll be looking at the 70-647 to get the full MCITP: Enterprise Administrator (I already took the 70-620 exam for my MCSE).

If you read the Microsoft blurb for R2, the first thing you notice is that Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only(!). It seems Microsoft are forcibly removing 32-bit server hardware from the data centre. I’ve not seen a decent upgrade guide online so far, so here’s my process. I’m going to be upgrading a Server 2008 R2 x64 SP2 Standard Edition virtual server to R2. To see what editions can and can’t be upgraded, check out this Technet Article, but it’s safe to say that you can’t upgrade across architectures (32-bit to 64-bit) and you can’t downgrade SKUs (Enterprise to Standard).

I recently resolved an ongoing DNS issue where the Active Directory Integrated DNS was loaded in both the Domain and the DomainDNSZones partition of AD - this is a separate issue and should be resolved differently. My problem when I tried to verify that the fixed DNS setup had propogated around my domain controllers, DC01 and DC02. DC01 kept failing “DCDIAG /TEST:DNS” with errors regarding the root hint servers. Googling about it was clear that a lot of people were suffering the same issue, but no article I read had correctly identified the solution.

Like thousands of other IT pros out there, I’m testing Windows 7 out on my laptop - since I don’t want to mess around with my main PC, it’s running on some older kit. The problem with that is that there aren’t many Vista drivers around for the hardware - why would there be, it’s not even supposed to be able to run Vista?! It does, however, run Windows 7 very admirably (just one of the many improvements).

I’m in the middle of rolling out Sophos as a replacement to the incumbent McAfee at work. One interesting thing that I found as I rolled out to some test users was that they were unable to log on to one of our internal systems using NTLM (integrated authentication). Instantly the roll out of Sophos was blamed - and I can understand why - the problem did not occur until Sophos was installed.

We have a folder redirection policy in place for all of our users in combination with a roaming profile policy - this policy is applied to the OU that contains our users. Unfortunately this policy was accidently linked to the root of our domain too, causing our Domain Admin users to be redirected too - something we do not want. When the mistake was discovered, the policy was unlinked, but the redirection remained (despite being set to revert when users fall out of scope).

I was just installing PowerShell on one of my Windows Server 2003 servers, when I encountered the error “You do not have permission to update Windows Server 2003. Please contact your system administrator.” Odd, especially considering that I was installing as the Domain Administrator, and that user should have more than enough permissions. A little bit of digging led me to MSKB 888791 which shows the permissions that are required in Group Policy to install the update.

If you’re getting a error on your LAN connection it’s possible that your network connection is attempting 802.11 authentication on your wired network. Unfortunately, it seems that Vista/Server 2008 both attempt it before reverting. As far as I can see, it’s not causing any issues, other than irritating me with a “failed” and a red question mark. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to fix! The authentication is handled by the Wired AutoConfig service, so it’s just a case of disabling it.

I’ve just had a frustrating few days trying to downgrade 4 Dell Latitude E6500 laptops to XP. The problem was, whenever you booted to the XP cd you would get to the point just before you agree to the license and then hit a blue screen with a SATA error code. It seems that the bundled driver for the SATA storage controller incorrectly identifies it and causes a fatal error as it’s loaded.

I recently tried to use Microsoft reader on my iMate K-Jam mobile, it’s Windows Mobile 5 powered, so according to Microsoft it’s fully supported. However, when I tried to activate, I got the following error: “You have an older version of Pocket PC which does not support Activation” Not true I cried, and after a lot of Google-ing and trying various different fixes that are posted on the net, I found the only one that actually worked for me!