IT Knowledgebase Articles

How do I deploy SP1? Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes installation files that you can extract from the XPsp1.exe file. This file contains all of the service pack binary files that have been updated for SP1; it also contains the Update.exe program file. XPsp1.exe is a self-extracting compressed file. You can extract all of the…

VMware ESX server is an amazing and complex product. It combines a Linux Service console with the power to run multiple virtual machine operating systems, all on the same server. There are a number of ways to administer ESX. Perhaps you are considering VMware ESX server or maybe you have it installed but want to…

Have you ever made a change to your VMware ESX Server Network configuration using the Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Client and then lost communications with the server? If you had to go to the ESX Service console to troubleshoot the virtual network configuration, would you know the commands to do it? In this article, you will…

With the growing popularity of VMware Infrastructure & ESX Server, there are an ever growing number of 3rd party tools available for ESX Server. In this article, we will provide a list of ESX 3rd party tools you should consider as add-ons for your ESX Servers. Take a look… What applications do I get with…

A word about working with Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and Terminal Servers Recently I had a long conversation with one of my clients about the proper way for using GPOs. I think my readers could benefit from the stuff that was said there. Naturally, the client’s name and details are not an issue and are…

  As described in the previous articles in this series, Active Directory snapshots in Windows Server 2008 allow an administrator to create snapshots of the Active Directory database. By using them, you can view the data inside such a snapshot and use it to restore or inspect data without the need to start the server…

Introduced in Windows Server 2008, Server Core is a low-footprint way to install your server OS. This article explains why Server Core is such a big deal for system administrators.

VMware ESXi 4.0 provides enhanced support for installing in “embedded” mode, so the host server does not need any physical disks installed. For vSphere Infrastructures utilizing SAN storage this allows diskless operation, reducing hardware costs and improving boot times. In this article Tom Finnis demonstrates how to do this with Hewlett Packard’s new G6 series servers using their built-in SD card slot.

What is ARP? The Address Resolution Protocol (or ARP) is a very important part of IP networking. ARP is used to connect OSI Layer 3 (Network) to OSI Layer 2 (Data-Link). For most of us, that means that ARP is used to link our IP addressing to our Ethernet addressing (MAC Addressing). For you to…

This page contains a collection of tweaking tips & tricks, articles and how-to guides, all related to Windows operating systems. Further Reading: Other articles might fit into the Tweaking, Installation and Security sections, so make sure you look there too.