Windows Server Administration

A while ago I wrote about How To Add A Custom Script to a Vista Sysprepped Image, and how you can use that as a work around to prompt a sysprepped Vista Image for a Computer Name. Well a reader here pointed out that there is another way that this can be acheived and let me tell that this is VERY VERY GOOD !!!

It is called MySysprep2 and if you go to this website, you can have a read and download it. Basically you add the mysysprep.exe file to the normal sysprep location C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep, then in your unattend.xml file replace the value that you want the user to enter in with %Insert Computer Name Here%. The text can be anything you would like, that was just an example.

For example I substituted * in the ComputerName Tags with %Please Enter A Name For Your Computer%. I also added the UserAccounts Component into the oobeSystem Pass and added a domain account to the Administrators Local Group. In the Name Section of the DomainAccount I whacked this in as the value %Please Input Your User Name%.

Sysprep now prompts me twice, once for the Computer Name and once for a User Name to add to the Local Administrators Group.

This issue has caused alot of headaches for system admins for a while now, check out this TechNet Forum. It is GREAT to finally have a way to do this.

If you have not done so already, make sure you REGISTER your name and email address in the Orange Box on the right so you don’s MISS OUT on the information that the others are getting as part of the Windows 2008 Server Administration Newsletter.

As part of this Newsletter you will receive information, tips, tools, how to’s on a range of topics associated with Windows Server 2008. I am currently testing out and having my first look at TS RemoteApps (very cool!) so there will be a good run down of my experiences with using this and lot’s more.

So make your System Administrator job alot easier by keeping “In the Know” SIGN UP Today

Cheers

Daniel Anderson
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I have been working through an issue we have at the moment with the Exchange 2007 Offline Address Book (OAB) and it’s generation, replication and distribution. In my Exchange 2007 setup the server that houses the Mailstore Role is the server that generates the OAB and then should replicate to the Server that hosts the Client Access Server Role.

The first issue I was having was that the Generating Server was not generating the OAB correctly. Probably not a good thing if people need to the Global Address List. So I hunted through the Event Viewer and found errors pertaining to the System Attendant “Microsoft Exchange System Attendant failed to read the membership of the Universal Security Group”. Now what I did here was to RESTART the System Attendant Service and that fixed those errors. From my research I gathered that the System Attendant caches some information regarding Globsal Catalogue Server and other information. We had been moving the FSMO and GC Roles around so that would have been the issue there.
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I was scrolling through my RSS Feeds this morning and saw a great article from the Technet Magazine. It is a “Utility Spotlight” article on SyncToy. Working in an education environment where students and staff for that matter are always coming to out office to get their computers re imaged or fixed for some other reason and when you ask them have they got a backup of their documents the standard response is “NO, Can’t you do that for me?”.

After having a play around with SyncToy I have found that this could be a cool little utility for alot of my users. It is a simple, easy to setup and install peice of software that will work on either XP or Vista. It works by having “Folder Pairs”, a Left Folder and a Right Folder. You can setup different Folder Pairs as well. For example I might want to create a folder pair for just my Photo’s and copy them to a specific network location, then I might have another folder pair for my documents and so on.
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As I continue on my way throught the Microsoft Exams, yesterday I sat the 70-642 “Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring” Exam and it was actually alot easier than I expected.

I was expecting alot of IP Address related questions, butr there was only a couple. I hate IP Address questions! trying to memorize the address table and converting slash notation to decimal notations to binary etc etc etc. Painful ! Anyway I spent quite a bit of time studying this and while it did get me through those questions very well, I probablt spent a little to much time on it considering there was only a couple of questions relating to this.

The BIG KEY to this exam if you are planning to sit this at some stage is to MAKE SURE you know your DNS and Network Access Protection (IPSec, PEAP etc etc) !!!! Spend time going over and over this stuff. A majority of the questions that I got were DNS and NAP related, there were a couple of questions about Securing VPN and Wireless Connections but hardly anything on NTFS and Share Permissions.
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