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Showing posts from June, 2012

a guest post? not quite...

i received this interesting request from "sarah" asking if i had an interest in a guest blog post. isn't that interesting? here's the email: Hi Marcus, I'm getting in touch with you because I'm interested in writing an article for your blog. I came across your blog post marcusoh.blogspot.com while writing for a website on music production. During my research, I've found an increasing focus in terms of design as the tools and technology available today improve our ability to customize how create music and collaborate as musicians Please let me know if you'd be interested in an article this topic. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Best, Sarah as you know, i write tons on music, music theory, musical collaboration, and such. NOT. if sarah's "research" on the purpose/scope/focus of my blog is any indication of her research in music, i wouldn't be interested even if i did have a topic that was germane to her resea

enumerating dns records with powershell

here's a way to list dns records with powershell going through wmi. keep in mind the dns class does not appear to support wildcards. :( get-wmiobject -ComputerName servername -Namespace root\microsoftDNS -Class MicrosoftDNS_ResourceRecord -Filter "domainname='mydomain'" | select textrepresentation   i haven't figured out how to loop through subdomains and dump them out yet. :/ it's a start. hopefully you guys have something better you can share.

windows phone 8 for business

i have spent most of this morning listening to the windows phone summit keynote in the background. i started paying a lot more attention when the windows phone 8 for business part came up. it's not too awful. this speaker is pretty good! if you missed the video, it's located here: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Windows-Phone/Summit the stuff for business (as in manageability, encryption, etc) starts ~28 minutes in. big news is the windows phone and windows 8 os share a common core, thus providing some really interesting benefits. here are the key items: complete security platform: encryption and secure boot covered by bitlocker flexible app distribution: signed applications deployed by internal application store instead of marketplace (think sideload-esque) supporting on-premise intranet or cloud device management: covered by the same technologies that manage windows os deep voip integration: skype or cell looks identical -- could mean reduced minutes plan company

xian network manager 2012

if you're an opsmgr admin, you either have used or have heard of jalasoft. they've been in the market for quite a while now -- nearly 10 years maybe. anyway, i just wanted to help them get the word out that their 2012 product has released. anyway, i don't have opsmgr 2012 deployed yet so understanding the functional limitations with network discovery is at a bit of a loss right now. the product screenshots look kind of compelling though. the use of a concept called " netflow " seems to stick out -- which appears to be a kind of way to view traffic patterns and determine  endpoints pushing around a lot of packets.   this seems to be a pretty good definition of netflow according to my friend glenn graham: Similarly, NetFlow-enabled routers and switches capture measurements of the network traffic at points in the network and transmit this captured data in the form of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) packets to a N

ad replication status tool

by now, if you haven't heard of it already, you probably will soon enough. microsoft released a new tool which outputs the replication status of your AD infrastructure. anyway, it's like viewing the same data ... a little more visually. i would love to see more dataviz ... but it's a great start. here's an overview from the download page: The Active Directory Replication Status Tool (ADREPLSTATUS) analyzes the replication status for domain controllers in an Active Directory domain or forest. ADREPLSTATUS displays data in a format that is similar to REPADMIN /SHOWREPL * /CSV imported into Excel but with significant enhancements. Specific capabilities for this tool include: Expose Active Directory replication errors occurring in a domain or forest. Prioritize errors that need to be resolved in order to avoid the creation of lingering objects in Active Directory forests. Help administrators and support professionals resolve replication errors by linking to Active D

winnate – using windows 8 with cisco vpn

are you having the same connection issue i was when trying to use the cisco vpn client? here’s what the message looks like: the message states: Reason 442: Failed to enable Virtual Adapter. this is the second time i’ve had to do this so i figured capture it. anyway, found the steps here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsdeveloperpreviewgeneral/thread/6fe817f3-27fe-4068-995a-aced4508ee3e anyway, it looks like the vpn client tries to enable the virtual adapter by its display name. the installation does some funky crap with the display name: broke: @oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%,Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows good: Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows once you remove the crud and try again, it works. here’s the actual steps that raman posted: Open Registry editor by typing regedit in Run prompt Browse to the Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\CVirtA Select the DisplayName to modify, and remove th

self-study guide for system center

here's some more good stuff scott wrote for use as study guides. excellent materials ... system center 2012 self-study guide (complete edition)   the individual parts... system center 2012 self-study guide (overview) system center 2012 self-study guide (advisor and app center) system center 2012 self-study guide (configmgr) system center 2012 self study guide (data protection manager and endpoint protection) system center 2012 self study guide (operations manager) system center 2012 self study guide (orchestrator and service manager) system center 2012 self study guide (unified installer and virtual machine manager)

checking dns forwarders of all domain controllers

connect to the ldap provider $dcs = [adsi] LDAP://ou=domain controllers,dc=mydomain,dc=com get a list of all dcs $dcs = $dcs.psbase.children | select -ExpandProperty name query the dns class $dcs | % { Write-Output $_ ; (gwmi -Namespace root\microsoftdns -ComputerName $_ -Query "select forwarders from microsoftdns_server" ).forwarders }

configuration manager 2012 service pack 1

the announcement of enhancements for configmgr 2012 with sp1 was delivered yesterday at teched. here's a rundown from the slides (since i am not there): Platform Support: Windows 8 Windows 8 tablet (Intel SoC) support Mac OS X Linux and Unix Hardware Inventory: 16 core classes viewable through Resource Explorer Extensible model – supports custom classes and pluggable providers ARP shows all native installed software (e.g. rpm’s or pkg’s) Create collections of Linux/UNIX computers Software Deployment Using the Package and Program model Deploy/patch software, deploy OS patches and run maintenance scripts that target a collection Secure and Authenticated communications Consolidated reports Operating System Deployment: Windows To Go support BitLocker changes: TPM and PIN Used Space BitLocker Prestage media now supports additional content types: Before: WIM Now: WIM, Applications, Drivers, Package/Programs Application Delivery: Metro style applications

opsmgr is running around crashing servers

okay, calm down. i'm totally sensationalizing the actual issue. had a domain controller go sour this morning, basically no longer advertising sysvol. here's a sample of the event: Event Type: Error Event Source: Application Error Event Category: (100) Event ID: 1000 Date: 1/1/2012 Time: 12:00:00 PM User: N/A Computer: <Computer Name> Description: Faulting application svchost.exe, version 5.2.3790.3959, faulting module netman.dll, version 5.2.3790.3959, fault address 0x0000000000008d4f. it isn't immediately obvious, but this problem is actually caused by opsmgr (as in the blog title implies). to be absolutely fair, opsmgr isn't actually at fault . however, it pounds the crap out of netman.dll which exposes a bug, causing the failure of the server service. when you lose the server service, you lose any process running spawned from svchost. that's a lot of stuff. here's the full article: http://suppor

windows 7 and wmi repair

a friend sent me an im today asking if i had experienced a situation with windows 7 that generally acted "funky", seemingly hanging applying settings, and such. what he determined from trace evidence is that wmi initiated a repair, but it wasn't initiated by an admin. i told him i could have sworn i had seen where windows 7 behavior changed and initiated a self-repair when it found certain conditions to be true. (i, of course, cannot find this anywhere now so if you know where it is, please leave a link in the comments!) long story short, windows 7 does initiate a self-repair. it isn't immediately evident in this article, but this article talks about a hotfix which suppresses unnecessary full diagnostics -- which can be cpu intensive, causing the problems my friend experienced. from the article: When you perform one of the following operations on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7, the operation may take a long time to complete: Start

self-study guide for powershell

here's another great study guide from the same friend . sharing is caring!   Top Level Site for PowerShell: http://www.microsoft.com/powershell   Windows PowerShell Training Windows PowerShell Getting Started Guide Scripting with Windows PowerShell PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (5 part video series) Why You Should Learn PowerShell How to Compound Windows PowerShell Commands for Fun and Profit A Look at Windows PowerShell Providers Windows PowerShell Does Event Logs Using Windows PowerShell to Manage the Remote Desktop Windows PowerShell – Learn it Now Before It’s an Emergency (5 part video series) Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Windows PowerShell Owner’s Manual Getting Started with Windows PowerShell Customizing the Windows PowerShell Console Windows PowerShell Shortcut Keys Piping and the Pipeline Running Windows PowerShell Scripts The Windows PowerShell Profile Windows PowerShell Aliases Windows PowerShell User’s Guide W

self-study guide for system center endpoint protection

whether you call it forefront endpoint protection (fep) or system center endpoint protection (scep), you might find these resources valuable as a means of getting up to speed. a good friend of mine created this awesome guide. anyway, sharing is caring. here you go...     Top Level Site for SCEP: http://www.microsoft.com/fep   Forefront Training Featured Videos Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 Top 5 Reasons to Move to Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 Forefront Endpoint Protection: New Protection Feature Demos Understanding the Convergence of Security and Management Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 Demos and Interview Protecting your Infrastructure with Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 How to Create a Policy with Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010: Simplified Policy Management Demo How to Deploy the Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection Client to a Computer How to Run a Quick Scan with Microsof

upgrading to windows 8 release preview

i saw some tweets a couple of days ago referencing a release preview blog that was posted and pulled because it posted early. well, i looked off and on for an announcement about it yesterday but ended up missing it because i was out. long story short, if you missed it too, it's available now . :) now, consider your options before you move forward. there is no going back to what you had before so be prepared. the only going back is reinstalling. speaking of reinstalling, if you're upgrading from xp, vista, or 7 the good news is there are some things that you can keep. windows 7 is the friendliest in that respect. if you are running one of the earlier windows 8 previews, put on your sad panda face because you will not be keeping anything relative to programs, windows settings, or account info. that detail is available in the faq . this morning i'm taking the plunge and installing the release preview. that means i'll be spending the weekend reinstalling apps. :) joy.