I’m always of fan of shortcuts and the Windows Server 2008 Administrator's Companion from Microsoft Press has a complete list of the command line shortcuts for starting Administrative Consoles for Server 2008. There are plenty of other goodies in this book so make sure you take a look at getting this one.
Command Line | Console Name |
| AdRmsAdmin.msc | Active Directory Rights Management Services |
| Adsiedit.msc | ADSI Edit |
| Azman.msc | Authorization Manager |
| Certmgr.msc | Certmgr (Certificates) |
| Certtmpl.msc | Certificates Template Console |
| CluAdmin.msc | Failover Cluster Management |
| Comexp.msc | Component Services |
| Compmgmt.msc | Computer Management |
| Devmgmt.msc | Device Manager |
| Dfsmgmt.msc | DFS Management |
| Dhcpmgmt.msc | DHCP Manager |
| Diskmgmt.msc | Disk Management |
| Dnsmgmt.msc | DNS Manager |
| Domain.msc | Active Directory Domains And Trusts |
| Dsa.msc | Active Directory Users And Computers |
| Dssite.msc | Active Directory Sites And Services |
| Eventvwr.msc | Event Viewer |
| Fsmgmt.msc | Shared Folders |
| Fsrm.msc | File Server Resource Manager |
| Fxsadmin.msc | Microsoft Fax Service Manager |
| Gpedit.msc | Local Group Policy Editor |
| Lusrmgr.msc | Local Users And Groups |
| Napclcfg.msc | NAP Client Configuration |
| Nfsmgmt.msc | Services For Network File System |
| Nps.msc | Network Policy Server |
| Ocsp.msc | Online Responder |
| Perfmon.msc | Reliability And Performance Monitor |
| Pkiview.msc | Enterprise PKI |
| Printmanagement.msc | Print Management |
| Remoteprograms.msc | TS RemoteApp Management |
| Rsop.msc | Resultant Set of Policy |
| Secpol.msc | Local Security Policy |
| ServerManager.msc | Server Manager |
| StorageMgmt.msc | Share And Storage Management |
| Services.msc | Services |
| StorExpl.msc | Storage Explorer |
| Tapimgmt.msc | Telephony |
| Taskschd.msc | Task Scheduler |
| Tmp.msc | Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Management |
| Tsadmin.msc | Terminal Services Management |
| Tsconfig.msc | Terminal Services Configuration |
| Tsgateway.msc | TS Gateway Manager |
| Tsmmc.msc | Remote Desktops |
| Uddi.msc | UDDI Services Console |
| Wbadmin.msc | Windows Server Backup |
| Wdsmgmt.msc | Windows Deployment Services |
| Winsmgmt.msc | WINS Manager |
| WmiMgmt.msc | WMI Control |
While I’ve always been a fan of Task Manager but lets face the facts…its has its limitations. Mark Russinovich has rolled up his wonderful Sysinternal Troubleshooting Utilities into a single download that can be found here.
In there you will find the ultra popular Process Explorer. Well I wanted to test out some stuff on Server Core…like what type of tools will really work on it. I copied over Process Explorer and it ran like a champ! Now all I need to do is go into the Options menu and select Replace Task Manager and now when I enter taskmgr or hit CTRL-Shift-ESC Process Explorer opens instead of Task Manager.
…I wonder how many other Sysinternal tools work on Server Core…
I just read over at Jane Lewis's blog that if you plan on deploying Server 2008 Read Only Domain Controllers (RODC) and have down-level clients (XP and 2003 clients) then you will want to check out the RODC Compatibility Pack.
I know a lot of people are planning on deploying this so this should be something that you should pay attention to. The KB article (and patch) addresses 10 potential issues.
The patch itself can be downloaded from Microsoft here.
Server Core has been a popular topic for me over the last year as it is something completly different from what i'm used to working on. I love the GUI but I know there are times when I have to do things via the command line. Well if you are going to deploy Server Core in your environment then you will need to have the following guide to ensure that you know how to configure your new server.
I've finally compiled a list of commands for Server Core into one article over at AdminPrep. I've sinced moved them to my blog here. Swing back here when your done to comment on it.
I've just written a small article on the common steps that I perform when doing health checks on domain controllers. AdminPrep is not up right now so I'll post the health check stuff here. I would love for you to come back here and let me know what else you do when you do health checks on domain controllers.
I get asked over and over about what I do when I'm performing a health check on a domain controller. Below you will see some of the commands that I use when I need to ensure my domain controllers are still healthy after some sort of change...like patching.
The Event Viewer is always a must. I look at all the logs before and after the update to the domain controller looking for abnormal events. With the pre-check I usually go back a month of logs to get more historical data. I then run through a couple command line utilities. One thing I always do is pipe my commands out to a text document. This just makes it easier for me to read and also search for failed events.
Dcdiag.exe /v >> c:\temp\pre_dcdiag.txt
This is a must and will always tell you if there is trouble with your DCs and/or services associated with it
Netdiag.exe /v >> c:\temp\pre_Netdiag.txt
This will let me know if there are issues with the networking components on the DC. This along with the post test also is a quick easy way to ensure the patch I just installed is really installed (just check the top of the log)
Netsh dhcp show server >> c:\temp\pre_dhcp.txt
Some may not do this but I've felt the pain of a DHCP server somehow not being authorized after a patch. This allows me verify the server count and names.
Repadmin /showreps >> c:\temp\pre_rep_partners.txt
This shows all my replication and if it was successful or not. Just be aware that Global Catalogs will have more info here than a normal domain controller.
repadmin /replsum /errorsonly >> c:\temp\pre_repadmin_err.txt
This is the one that always takes forever but will let you know who you are having issues replicating with.
After I run and check the pre_ scripts I update my server. When it is done I run post_ scripts which are the same thing but this allows me to verify them against the scripts earlier.
Hopefully this helps you when you troubleshoot your domain controllers but by no way is this an all encompassing list of things to do. These are the standard steps I take but I would love to hear what you all do as well.