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What are the required components of Windows Server 2003 for installing Exchange 2003? ASP.NET, SMTP, NNTP, W3SVC What must be done to an AD forest before Exchange can be deployed? Setup /forestprep What Exchange process is responsible for communication with AD? DSACCESS What 3 types of domain controller does Exchange access? Normal Domain Controller, Global Catalog, Configuration Domain Controller What connector type would you use to connect to the Internet, and what are the two methods of sending mail over that connector? SMTP Connector: Forward to smart host or use DNS to route to each address
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How would you optimise Exchange 2003 memory usage on a Windows Server 2003 server with more than 1Gb of memory? Add /3Gb switch to boot.ini What would a rise in remote queue length generally indicate? This means mail is not being sent to other servers. This can be explained by outages or performance issues with the network or remote servers. What would a rise in the Local Delivery queue generally mean? This indicates a performance issue or outage on the local server. Reasons could be slowness in consulting AD, slowness in handing messages off to local delivery or SMTP delivery. It could also be databases being dismounted or a lack of disk space.
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What are the standard port numbers for SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, RPC, LDAP and Global Catalog? SMTP 25, POP3 110, IMAP4 143, RPC 135, LDAP 389, Global Catalog 3268
10. Name the process names for the following: System Attendant? MAD.EXE, Information Store STORE.EXE, SMTP/POP/IMAP/OWA INETINFO.EXE 11. What is the maximum amount of databases that can be hosted on Exchange 2003 Enterprise? 20 databases. 4 SGs x 5 DBs. 12. What are the disadvantages of circular logging? In the event of a corrupt database, data can only be restored to the last backup.
to handle and maintain all network resources from a single location . Active Directory stores information and settings in a central database
What is LDAP?
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP , is an application protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP. Although not yet widely implemented, LDAP should eventually make it possible for almost any application running on virtually any computer platform to obtain directory information, such as email addresses and public keys. Because LDAP is an open protocol, applications need not worry about the type of server hosting the directory.
Can you connect Active Directory to other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name a few options.
-Yes you can connect other vendors Directory Services with Microsofts version. -Yes, you can use dirXML or LDAP to connect to other directories (ie. E-directory from Novell or NDS (Novel directory System). -Yes you can Connect Active Directory to other 3rd -party Directory Services such as dictonaries used by SAP, Domino etc with the help of MIIS ( Microsoft Identity Integration Server )
Where is the AD database held? What other folders are related to AD?
AD Database is saved in %systemroot%/ntds. You can see other files also in this folder. These are the main files controlling the AD structure ntds.dit edb.log res1.log res2.log edb.chk When a change is made to the Win2K database, triggering a write operation, Win2K records the transaction in the log file (edb.log). Once written to the log file, the change is then written to the AD database. System performance determines how fast the system writes the data to the AD database from the log file. Any time
the system is shut down, all transactions are saved to the database. During the installation of AD, Windows creates two files: res1.log and res2.log. The initial size of each is 10MB. These files are used to ensure that changes can be written to disk should the system run out of free disk space. The checkpoint file (edb.chk) records transactions committed to the AD database (ntds.dit). During shutdown, a shutdown statement is written to the edb.chk file. Then, during a reboot, AD determines that all transactions in the edb.log file have been committed to the AD database. If, for some reason, the edb.chk file doesnt exist on reboot or the shutdown statement isnt present, AD will use the edb.log file to update the AD database. The last file in our list of files to know is the AD database itself, ntds.dit. By default, the file is located in\NTDS, along with the other files weve discussed
single Active Directory domain. This is the NC that contains the most commonly-accessed Active Directory data: the actual users, groups, computers, and other objects that reside within a particular Active Directory domain.
different domain would require the user or application to provide the domain of the requested object. The global catalog provides the ability to locate objects from any domain without having to know the domain name. A global catalog server is a domain controller that, in addition to its full, writable domain directory partition replica, also stores a partial, read-only replica of all other domain directory partitions in the forest. The additional domain directory partitions are partial because only a limited set of attributes is included for each object. By including only the attributes that are most used for searching, every object in every domain in even the largest forest can be represented in the database of a single global catalog server.
the ADSI application programming interfaces (APIs) to access Active Directory. The following are the required files for using this tool: ADSIEDIT.DLL ADSIEDIT.MSC Regarding system requirements, a connection to an Active Directory environment and Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is necessary
A: Replmon is the first tool you should use when troubleshooting Active Directory replication issues. As it is a graphical tool, replication issues are easy to see and somewhat easier to diagnose than using its command line counterparts. The purpose of this document is to guide you in how to use it, list some common replication errors and show some examples of when replication issues can stop other network installation actions. for more go to http://www.techtutorials.net/articles/replmon_howto_a.html NETDOM is a command-line tool that allows management of Windows domains and trust relationships. It is used for batch management of trusts, joining computers to domains, verifying trusts, and secure channels A: Enables administrators to manage Active Directory domains and trust relationships from the command prompt. Netdom is a command-line tool that is built into Windows Server 2008. It is available if you have the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) server role installed. To use netdom, you must run the netdom command from an elevated command prompt. To open an elevated command prompt, click Start, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. REPADMIN.EXE is a command line tool used to monitor and troubleshoot replication on a computer running Windows. This is a command line tool that allows you to view the replication topology as seen from the perspective of each domain controller. REPADMIN is a built-in Windows diagnostic command-line utility that works at the Active Directory level. Although specific to
Windows, it is also useful for diagnosing some Exchange replication problems, since Exchange Server is Active Directory based. REPADMIN doesnt actually fix replication problems for you. But, you can use it to help determine the source of a malfunction.
An NTFS partition with enough free space (250MB minimum) An Administrators username and password The correct operating system version A NIC Properly configured TCP/IP (IP address, subnet mask and optional default gateway) A network connection (to a hub or to another computer via a crossover cable) An operational DNS server (which can be installed on the DC itself) A Domain name that you want to use The Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 CD media (or at least the i386 folder) From the Petri IT Knowledge base. For more info, follow this link: http://www.petri.co.il/active_directory_installation_requirements .htm
What can you do to promote a server to DC if youre in a remote location with slow WAN link?
First available in Windows 2003, you will create a copy of the system state from an existing DC and copy it to the new remote server. Run Dcpromo /adv. You will be prompted for the location of the system state files
How can you forcibly remove AD from a server, and what do you do later? Can I get user passwords
from the AD database? Demote the server using dcpromo /forceremoval, then remove the metadata from Active directory using ndtsutil. There is no way to get user passwords from AD that I am aware of, but you should still be able to change them. Another way out too Restart the DC is DSRM mode a. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Prod uctOptions
b. In the right-pane, double-click ProductType. c. Type ServerNT in the Value data box, and then click OK. Restart the server in normal mode its a member server now but AD entries are still there. Promote teh server to a fake domain say ABC.com and then remove gracefully using DCpromo. Else after restart you can also use ntdsutil to do metadata as told in teh earlier post
What tool would I use to try to grab security related packets from the wire?
you must use sniffer-detecting tools to help stop the snoops. A good packet sniffer would be ethereal www.ethereal.com
What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 DC in a Windows 2000 AD? If you plan to install windows 2003 server domain controllers into an existing windows 2000 domain or upgrade a windows 2000 domain controllers to windows server 2003, you first need to run the Adprep.exe utility on the windows 2000 domain controllers currently holding the schema master and infrastructure master roles. The adprep / forestprer command must first be issued on the windows 2000 server holding schema
master role in the forest root doman to prepare the existing schema to support windows 2003 active directory. The adprep /domainprep command must be issued on the sever holding the infrastructure master role in the domain where 2000 server will be deployed.
How would you find all users that have not logged on since last month?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_would_you_find_all_users_that_have_not_logged_on_since_last_mon th
What are the FSMO roles? Who has them by default? What happens when each one fails?
FSMO stands for the Flexible single Master Operation It has 5 Roles: -
Schema Master:
The schema master domain controller controls all updates and modifications to the schema. Once the Schema update is complete, it is replicated from the schema master to all other DCs in the directory. To update the schema of a forest, you must have access to the schema master. There can be only one schema master in the whole forest.
Infrastructure Master:
When an object in one domain is referenced by another object in another domain, it represents the reference by the GUID, the SID (for references to security principals), and the DN of the object being referenced. The infrastructure FSMO role holder is the DC responsible for updating an objects SID and distinguished name in a cross-domain object reference. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the infrastructure master in each domain. Note: The Infrastructure Master (IM) role should be held by a domain controller that is not a Global Catalog server (GC). If the Infrastructure Master runs on a Global Catalog server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a Global Catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. As a result, cross-domain object references in that domain will not be updated and a warning to that effect will be logged on that DCs event log. If all the domain controllers in a domain also host the global catalog, all the domain controllers have the current data, and it is not important which domain controller holds the infrastructure master role.
The RID master is responsible for processing RID pool requests from all domain controllers in a particular domain. When a DC creates a security principal object such as a user or group, it attaches a unique Security ID (SID) to the object. This SID consists of a domain SID (the same for all SIDs created in a domain), and a relative ID (RID) that is unique for each security principal SID created in a domain. Each DC in a domain is allocated a pool of RIDs that it is allowed to assign to the security principals it creates. When a DCs allocated RID pool falls below a threshold, that DC issues a request for additional RIDs to the domains RID master. The domain RID master responds to the request by retrieving RIDs from the domains unallocated RID pool and assigns them to the pool of the requesting DC. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the RID master in the domain.
PDC Emulator:
The PDC emulator is necessary to synchronize time in an enterprise. Windows 2000/2003 includes the W32Time (Windows Time) time service that is required by the Kerberos authentication protocol. All Windows 2000/2003-based computers within an enterprise use a common time. The purpose of the time service is to ensure that the Windows Time service uses a hierarchical relationship that controls authority and does not permit loops to ensure appropriate common time usage. The PDC emulator of a domain is authoritative for the domain. The PDC emulator at the root of the forest becomes authoritative for the enterprise, and should be configured to gather the time from an external source. All PDC FSMO role holders follow the hierarchy of domains in the selection of their in-bound time partner. :: In a Windows 2000/2003 domain, the PDC emulator role holder retains the following functions: :: Password changes performed by other DCs in the domain are replicated preferentially to the PDC emulator. Authentication failures that occur at a given DC in a domain because of an incorrect password are forwarded to the PDC emulator before a bad password failure message is reported to the user. Account lockout is processed on the PDC emulator.
Editing or creation of Group Policy Objects (GPO) is always done from the GPO copy found in the PDC Emulators SYSVOL share, unless configured not to do so by the administrator. The PDC emulator performs all of the functionality that a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server-based PDC or earlier PDC performs for Windows NT 4.0-based or earlier clients. This part of the PDC emulator role becomes unnecessary when all workstations, member servers, and domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or earlier are all upgraded to Windows 2000/2003. The PDC emulator still performs the other functions as described in a Windows 2000/2003 environment.
Whats the difference between transferring a FSMO role and seizing one? Which one should you NOT
seize? Why? Certain domain and enterprise-wide operations that are not good for multi-master updates are performed by a single domain controller in an Active Directory domain or forest. The domain controllers that are assigned to perform these unique operations are called operations masters or FSMO role holders. The following list describes the 5 unique FSMO roles in an Active Directory forest and the dependent operations that they perform:
Schema master The Schema master role is forest-wide and there is one for each forest. This role is
required to extend the schema of an Active Directory forest or to run the adprep /domainprep command.
Domain naming master The Domain naming master role is forest-wide and there is one for each
forest. This role is required to add or remove domains or application partitions to or from a forest.
RID master The RID master role is domain-wide and there is one for each domain. This role is required
to allocate the RID pool so that new or existing domain controllers can create user accounts, computer accounts or security groups.
PDC emulator The PDC emulator role is domain-wide and there is one for each domain. This role is
required for the domain controller that sends database updates to Windows NT backup domain controllers. The domain controller that owns this role is also targeted by certain administration tools and updates to user account and computer account passwords.
Infrastructure master The Infrastructure master role is domain-wide and there is one for each domain.
This role is required for domain controllers to run the adprep /forestprep command successfully and to update SID attributes and distinguished name attributes for objects that are referenced across domains. The Active Directory Installation Wizard (Dcpromo.exe) assigns all 5 FSMO roles to the first domain controller in the forest root domain. The first domain controller in each new child or tree domain is assigned the three domain-wide roles. Domain controllers continue to own FSMO roles until they are reassigned by using one of the following methods:
An administrator reassigns the role by using a GUI administrative tool. An administrator reassigns the role by using the ntdsutil /roles command. An administrator gracefully demotes a role-holding domain controller by using the Active Directory
Installation Wizard. This wizard reassigns any locally-held roles to an existing domain controller in the forest. Demotions that are performed by using the dcpromo /forceremoval command leave FSMO roles in an invalid state until they are reassigned by an administrator. We recommend that you transfer FSMO roles in the following scenarios:
The current role holder is operational and can be accessed on the network by the new FSMO owner. You are gracefully demoting a domain controller that currently owns FSMO roles that you want to assign
to a specific domain controller in your Active Directory forest.
The domain controller that currently owns FSMO roles is being taken offline for scheduled maintenance
and you need specific FSMO roles to be assigned to a live domain controller. This may be required to perform operations that connect to the FSMO owner. This would be especially true for the PDC Emulator role but less true for the RID master role, the Domain naming master role and the Schema master roles. We recommend that you seize FSMO roles in the following scenarios:
The current role holder is experiencing an operational error that prevents an FSMO-dependent
operation from completing successfully and that role cannot be transferred.
A domain controller that owns an FSMO role is force-demoted by using the dcpromo /forceremoval
command.
The operating system on the computer that originally owned a specific role no longer exists or has been
reinstalled. As replication occurs, non-FSMO domain controllers in the domain or forest gain full knowledge of changes that are made by FSMO-holding domain controllers. If you must transfer a role, the best candidate domain controller is one that is in the appropriate domain that last inbound-replicated, or recently inbound-replicated a writable copy of the FSMO partition from the existing role holder. For example, the Schema master roleholder has a distinguished name path of CN=schema,CN=configuration,dc=<forest root domain>, and this mean that roles reside in and are replicated as part of the CN=schema partition. If the domain controller that holds the Schema master role experiences a hardware or software failure, a good candidate role-holder would be a domain controller in the root domain and in the same Active Directory site as the current owner. Domain controllers in the same Active Directory site perform inbound replication every 5 minutes or 15 seconds. A domain controller whose FSMO roles have been seized should not be permitted to communicate with existing domain controllers in the forest. In this scenario, you should either format the hard disk and reinstall the operating system on such domain controllers or forcibly demote such domain controllers on a private network and then remove their metadata on a surviving domain controller in the forest by using the ntdsutil /metadata cleanup command. The risk of introducing a former FSMO role holder whose role has been seized into the forest is that the original role holder may continue to operate as before until it inbound-replicates knowledge of the role seizure. Known risks of two domain controllers owning the same FSMO roles include creating security principals that have overlapping RID pools, and other problems.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Click Start, click Run, type ntdsutil in the Open box, and then click OK. Type roles, and then press ENTER.Note To see a list of available commands at any one of the prompts in the Ntdsutil utility, type ?, and then press ENTER. Type connections, and then press ENTER. Type connect to server servername, and then press ENTER, where servername is the name of the domain controller you want to assign the FSMO role to. At the server connections prompt, type q, and then press ENTER. Type transfer role, where role is the role that you want to transfer. For a list of roles that you can transfer, type ? at the fsmo maintenance prompt, and then press ENTER, or see the list of roles at the start of this article. For example, to transfer the RID master role, type transfer rid master. The one exception is for the PDC emulator role, whose syntax is transfer pdc, not transfer pdc emulator.
8.
At the fsmo maintenance prompt, type q, and then press ENTER to gain access to the ntdsutil prompt. Type q, and then press ENTER to quit the Ntdsutil utility.
o Under typical conditions, all five roles must be assigned to live domain controllers in the
forest. If a domain controller that owns a FSMO role is taken out of service before its roles are transferred, you must seize all roles to an appropriate and healthy domain controller. We recommend that you only seize all roles when the other domain controller is not returning to the domain. If it is possible, fix the broken domain controller that is assigned the FSMO roles. You should determine which roles are to be on which remaining domain controllers so that all five roles are assigned to a single domain controller. For more information about
FSMO role placement, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 223346 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223346/ ) FSMO placement and optimization on Windows 2000 domain controllers
o If the domain controller that formerly held any FSMO role is not present in the domain and if it
has had its roles seized by using the steps in this article, remove it from the Active Directory by following the procedure that is outlined in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article: 216498 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216498/ ) How to remove data in active directory after an unsuccessful domain controller demotion
o Removing domain controller metadata with the Windows 2000 version or the Windows Server
2003 build 3790 version of the ntdsutil /metadata cleanup command does not relocate FSMO roles that are assigned to live domain controllers. The Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) version of the Ntdsutil utility automates this task and removes additional elements of domain controller metadata.
o Some customers prefer not to restore system state backups of FSMO role-holders in case the
role has been reassigned since the backup was made.
o Do not put the Infrastructure master role on the same domain controller as the global catalog
server. If the Infrastructure master runs on a global catalog server it stops updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a global catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. To test whether a domain controller is also a global catalog server: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Sites and Services. Double-click Sites in the left pane, and then locate the appropriate site or click Default-first-sitename if no other sites are available. Open the Servers folder, and then click the domain controller. In the domain controllers folder, double-click NTDS Settings. On the Action menu, click Properties. On the General tab, view the Global Catalog check box to see if it is selected.
For more information about FSMO roles, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
How do you configure a stand-by operation master for any of the roles?
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Open Active Directory Sites and Services. Expand the site name in which the standby operations master is located to display the Servers folder. Expand the Servers folder to see a list of the servers in that site. Expand the name of the server that you want to be the standby operations master to display its NTDS Settings. Right-click NTDS Settings, click New, and then click Connection.
6. 7.
In the Find Domain Controllers dialog box, select the name of the current role holder, and then click OK. In the New Object-Connection dialog box, enter an appropriate name for the Connection object or accept the default name, and click OK.
files that are under windows file protection and used by windows to load, configure, and run the operating system. The COM+ Class Registration database: The Class registration is a database of information about Component Services applications. The Certificate Services database: This database contains certificates that a server running Windows server 2003 uses to authenticate users. The Certificate Services database is present only if the server is operating as a certificate server. System state data contains most elements of a systems configuration, but it may not include all of the information that you require recovering data from a system failure. Therefore, be sure to backup all boot and system volumes, including the System State, when you back up your server. Restoring Active Directory In Windows Server 2003 family, you can restore the Active Directory database if it becomes corrupted or is destroyed because of hardware or software failures. You must restore the Active Directory database when objects in Active Directory are changed or deleted. Active Directory restore can be performed in several ways. Replication synchronizes the latest changes from every other replication partner. Once the replication is finished each partner has an updated version of Active Directory. There is another way to get these latest updates by Backup utility to restore replicated data from a backup copy. For this restore you dont need to configure again your domain controller or no need to install the operating system from scratch. Active Directory Restore Methods You can use one of the three methods to restore Active Directory from backup media: primary restore, normal (non authoritative) restore, and authoritative restore. Primary restore: This method rebuilds the first domain controller in a domain when there is no other way to rebuild the domain. Perform a primary restore only when all the domain controllers in the domain are lost, and you want to rebuild the domain from the backup. Members of Administrators group can perform the primary restore on local computer, or user should have been delegated
with this responsibility to perform restore. On a domain controller only Domain Admins can perform this restore. Normal restore: This method reinstates the Active Directory data to the state before the backup, and then updates the data through the normal replication process. Perform a normal restore for a single domain controller to a previously known good state. Authoritative restore: You perform this method in tandem with a normal restore. An authoritative restore marks specific data as current and prevents the replication from overwriting that data. The authoritative data is then replicated through the domain. Perform an authoritative restore individual object in a domain that has multiple domain controllers. When you perform an authoritative restore, you lose all changes to the restore object that occurred after the backup. Ntdsutil is a command line utility to perform an authoritative restore along with windows server 2003 system utilities. The Ntdsutil command-line tool is an executable file that you use to mark Active Directory objects as authoritative so that they receive a higher version recently changed data on other domain controllers does not overwrite system state data during replication.
Restoring Active Directory : In Windows Server 2003 family, you can restore the Active Directory database if it becomes corrupted or is destroyed because of hardware or software failures. You must restore the Active Directory database when objects in Active Directory are changed or deleted. Active Directory restore can be performed in several ways. Replication synchronizes the latest changes from every other replication partner. Once the replication is finished each partner has an updated version of Active Directory. There is another way to get these latest updates by Backup utility to restore replicated data from a backup copy. For this restore you dont need to configure again your domain controller or no need to install the operating system from scratch. Active Directory Restore Methods You can use one of the three methods to restore Active Directory from backup media: primary restore, normal (non authoritative) restore, and authoritative restore.
Primary restore: This method rebuilds the first domain controller in a domain when there is no other way to rebuild the domain. Perform a primary restore only when all the domain controllers in the domain are lost, and you want to rebuild the domain from the backup. Members of Administrators group can perform the primary restore on local computer, or user should have been delegated with this responsibility to perform restore. On a domain controller only Domain Admins can perform this restore. Normal restore: This method reinstates the Active Directory data to the state before the backup, and then updates the data through the normal replication process. Perform a normal restore for a single domain controller to a previously known good state. Authoritative restore: You perform this method in tandem with a normal restore. An authoritative restore marks specific data as current and prevents the replication from overwriting that data. The authoritative data is then replicated through the domain. Perform an authoritative restore individual object in a domain that has multiple domain controllers. When you perform an authoritative restore, you lose all changes to the restore object that occurred after the backup. Ntdsutil is a command line utility to perform an authoritative restore along with windows server 2003 system utilities. The Ntdsutil command-line tool is an executable file that you use to mark Active Directory objects as authoritative so that they receive a higher version recently changed data on other domain controllers does not overwrite system state data during replication.
METHOD
A. You cant restore Active Directory (AD) to a domain controller (DC) while the Directory Service (DS) is running. To restore AD, perform the following steps. Reboot the computer. At the boot menu, select Windows 2000 Server. Dont press Enter. Instead, press F8 for advanced options. Youll see the following text. OS Loader V5.0 Windows NT Advanced Options Menu Please select an option:
Safe Mode Safe Mode with Networking Safe Mode with Command Prompt Enable Boot Logging Enable VGA Mode Last Known Good Configuration Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows NT domain controllers only) Debugging Mode Use | and | to move the highlight to your choice. Press Enter to choose. Scroll down, and select Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows NT domain controllers only). Press Enter. When you return to the Windows 2000 Server boot menu, press Enter. At the bottom of the screen, youll see in red text Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows NT domain controllers only). The computer will boot into a special safe mode and wont start the DS. Be aware that during this time the machine wont act as a DC and wont perform functions such as authentication. Start NT Backup. Select the Restore tab. Select the backup media, and select System State. Click Start Restore. Click OK in the confirmation dialog box. After you restore the backup, reboot the computer and start in normal mode to use the restored information. The computer might hang after the restore completes; Sometimes it takes a 30-minute wait on some machines.
the\System32\Config folder. The SAM-based account and password are computer specific and they are not replicated to other domain controllers in the domain. For ease of administration of domain controllers or for additional security measures, you can change the Administrator password for the local SAM. To change the local Administrator password that you use when you start Recovery Console or when you start Directory Service Restore Mode, use the following method. 1. Log on to the computer as the administrator or a user who is a member of the Administrators group. 2. Shut down the domain controller on which you want to change the password. 3. Restart the computer. When the selection menu screen is displayed during restar, press F8 to view advanced startup options. 4. Click the Directory Service Restore Mode option. 5. After you log on, use one of the following methods to change the local Administrator password: At a command prompt, type the following command: net user administrator Use the Local User and Groups snap-in (Lusrmgr.msc) to change the Administrator password. 6. Shut down and restart the computer. You can now use the Administrator account to log on to Recovery Console or Directory Services Restore Mode using the new password.
Policy settings can be removed and can further rewrite the changes. Where GPOs store Group Policy Information Group Policy objects store their Group Policy information in two locations: Group Policy Container: The GPC is an Active Directory object that contains GPO status, version information, WMI filter information, and a list of components that have settings in the GPO. Computers can access the GPC to locate Group Policy templates, and domain controller does not have the most recent version of the GPO, replication occurs to obtain the latest version of the GPO. Group Policy Template: The GPT is a folder hierarchy in the shared SYSVOL folder on a domain controller. When you create GPO, Windows Server 2003 creates the corresponding GPT which contains all Group Policy settings and information, including administrative templates, security, software installation, scripts, and folder redirection settings. Computers connect to the SYSVOL folder to obtain the settings. The name of the GPT folder is the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) of the GPO that you created. It is identical to the GUID that Active Directory uses to identify the GPO in the GPC. The path to the GPT on a domain controller is systemroot\SYSVOL\sysvol. Managing GPOs To avoid conflicts in replication, consider the selection of domain controller, especially because the GPO data resides in SYSVOL folder and the Active Directory. Active Directory uses two independent replication techniques to replicate GPO data among all domain controllers in the domain. If two administrators changes can overwrite those made by other administrator, depends on the replication latency. By default the Group Policy Management console uses the PDC Emulator so that all administrators can work on the same domain controller. WMI Filter WMI filters is use to get the current scope of GPOs based on attributes of the user or computer. In this way, you can increase the GPOs filtering capabilities beyond the security group filtering mechanisms that were previously available. Linking can be done with WMI filter to a GPO. When you apply a GPO to the destination computer, Active Directory evaluates the filter on the destination computer. A WMI filter has few queries that active Directory evaluates in place of WMI repository of the
destination computer. If the set of queries is false, Active Directory does not apply the GPO. If set of queries are true, Active Directory applies the GPO. You write the query by using the WMI Query Language (WQL); this language is similar to querying SQL for WMI repository. Planning a Group Policy Strategy for the Enterprise When you plan an Active Directory structure, create a plan for GPO inheritance, administration, and deployment that provides the most efficient Group Policy management for your organization. Also consider how you will implement Group Policy for the organization. Be sure to consider the delegation of authority, separation of administrative duties, central versus decentralized administration, and design flexibility so that your plan will provide for ease of use as well as administration. Planning GPOs Create GPOs in way that provides for the simplest and most manageable design one in which you can use inheritance and multiple links. Guidelines for Planning GPOs Apply GPO settings at the highest level: This way, you take advantage of Group Policy inheritance. Determine what common GPO settings for the largest container are starting with the domain and then link the GPO to this container. Reduce the number of GPOs: You reduce the number by using multiple links instead of creating multiple identical GPOs. Try to link a GPO to the broadest container possible level to avoid creating multiple links of the same GPO at a deeper level. Create specialized GPOs: Use these GPOs to apply unique settings when necessary. GPOs at a higher level will not apply the settings in these specialized GPOs. Disable computer or use configuration settings: When you create a GPO to contain settings for only one of the two levels-user and computer-disable the logon and prevents accidental GPO settings from being applied to the other area.
1:- Local Group Policy object-each computer has exactly one Group Policy object that is stored locally. This processes for both computer and user Group Policy processing. 2:- Site-Any GPOs that have been linked to the site that the computer belongs to are processed next. Processing is in the order that is specified by the administrator, on the Linked Group Policy Objects tab for the site in Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). The GPO with the lowest link order is processed last, and therefore has the highest precedence. 3:- Domain-processing of multiple domain-linked GPOs is in the order specified by the administrator, on the Linked Group Policy Objects tab for the domain in GPMC. The GPO with the lowest link order is processed last, and therefore has the highest precedence. 4:- Organizational units-GPOs that are linked to the organizational unit that is highest in the Active Directory hierarchy are processed first, then GPOs that are linked to its child organizational unit, and so on. Finally, the GPOs that are linked to the organizational unit that contains the user or computer are processed. At the level of each organizational unit in the Active Directory hierarchy, one, many, or no GPOs can be linked. If several GPOs are linked to an organizational unit, their processing is in the order that is specified by the administrator, on the Linked Group Policy Objects tab for the organizational unit in GPMC. The GPO with the lowest link order is processed last, and therefore has the highest precedence. This order means that the local GPO is processed first, and GPOs that are linked to the organizational unit of which the computer or user is a direct member are processed last, which overwrites settings in the earlier GPOs if there are conflicts. (If there are no conflicts, then the earlier and later settings are merely aggregated.)
Easy administration of all GPOs across the entire Active Directory Forest
View of all GPOs in one single list Reporting of GPO settings, security, filters, delegation, etc. Control of GPO inheritance with Block Inheritance, Enforce, and Security Filtering Delegation model Backup and restore of GPOs Migration of GPOs across different domains and forests
With all of these benefits, there are still negatives in using the GPMC alone. Granted, the GPMC is needed and should be used by everyone for what it is ideal for. However, it does fall a bit short when you want to protect the GPOs from the following:
Role based delegation of GPO management Being edited in production, potentially causing damage to desktops and servers Forgetting to back up a GPO after it has been modified Change management of each modification to every GPO How can you determine what GPO was and was not applied for a user? Name a few ways to do that.
Simply use the Group Policy Management Console created by MS for that very purpose, allows you to run simulated policies on computers or users to determine what policies are enforced. Link in sources
You want to standardize the desktop environments (wallpaper, My Documents, Start menu, printers etc.)
on the computers in one department. How would you do that? Login on client as Domain Admin user change whatever you need add printers etc go to system-User profiles copy this user profile to any location by select Everyone in permitted to use after copy change ntuser.dat to ntuser.man and assgin this path under user profile