Windows Server 2008

As with many network-related systems, sometime we are faced with specific network issues causing us to lose connectivity to certain systems. These issues could be caused by an assortment of reasons, beginning with basic TCP/IP configuration errors, network device malfunctions, cabling problems, firewall configurations and other problems. Most of these issues might be easily overruled…

Active Directory snapshots in Windows Server 2008 is a cool trick any IT pro should be aware of. By using this feature, you can either manually, or programmatically, create snapshots of the Active Directory database at a given time. These snapshots can be stored on the local hard disk of the Domain Controller (DC), or…

In the past, managing disk partitions had to be mostly done through 3rd-party tools such as Partition Magic and others, that had to be booted externally to Microsoft operating systems from bootable CDs. Such tools allowed you to re-format your disk, manage partitions, and mostly to extend (increase the size of) and shrink (reduce the…

You can use logon scripts to assign tasks that will be performed when a user logs on to a particular computer. These scripts can carry out operating system commands, set system environment variables, and call other scripts or executable programs. Some tasks commonly performed by logon scripts include: Mapping network drives Installing and setting a…

This question has attracted my eyes a few times on different forums, so I decided to write an article about it. Choosing the right name for your servers is one of the steps that should be taken into account when designing a new network, or when deploying new servers. You should be totally aware of…

As I wrote in previous Windows Server 2008 articles, a Server Core installation provides a minimal environment for running specific server roles, which reduces the maintenance and management requirements and the attack surface for those server roles. You can read more about Server Core in the “What’s Related” section at the bottom of this page….

Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows Server 2008, has only been released for a few weeks. The new OS features a new version of IIS, Server Core, Virtualization, Security, and all new Management features. Train Signal has released a 6+ hour course on DVD and is currently giving this away for free with any order. The…

When it comes to configuring file servers, many administrators choose to use a distributed file system  (DFS) rather than a traditional standalone share point, because of the redundancy that DFS provides. Although DFS can greatly improve the performance and availability of the data stored on your network, these benefits come at a price. There are…

The Windows Performance Monitor has been around in one form or another since the days of Windows NT.  Even so, this is one tool that I rarely see anyone use in the real world.  I suspect that the reason for this is probably that the Performance Monitor tends to be both tedious and difficult to…

Last month I had a client buy and install several Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers. These servers had 2 Quad processors, 16GB or RAM, and 2 300GB 15K RAPM SAS hard disks, making them ideal for medium-range departmental servers. When the machines arrived, I installed Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition 64-bit on them, and proceeded to…