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Could not create NTDS settings yadayadayada on domain controller CN=yadayadayada. The RPC server is unavailable. This was the error message greeting me (with some meaningful text instead of the yadayadayada of course :)) when I tried to add a backup domain...
This is what I got in the event logs yesterday afternoon: Event Type: Error Event Source: Kerberos Event Category: None Event ID: 4 Computer: SE-SMURF01 Description: The kerberos client received a KRB_AP_ERR_MODIFIED error from the server PC-BLABLA09...
The scheduled task for running ntbackup on our fileserver would not run anymore. It would stop with a return code of 0x80, and nothing worthwhile in the log file or event log. It ran fine for months, apart from the occasional hickup such as having no...
Last week I had a very peculiar problem with the Terminal Server licensing. I couldn't connect to the licensing server anymore, even though it was running. The Terminal Server Licensing app couldn't detect it anymore. The only thing that still...
Some time ago I was looking for a way to make backups of the eventlogs of our server, preferably without me ever having to do anything anymore J This was not success. There are a couple of tools to make text exports from eventlogs. These have the disadvantage...
I have been silent on my blog for the last couple of weeks. This is because I spent all my time preparing for my first Microsoft exam in a couple of years. But it has been worth it. Today I passed the Microsoft certification exam 70-290: Managing and...
Last week I bought myself a zune, and since my main computer during the day is my company laptop, I wanted to install it on that one. Unfortunately, going to zune.net didn;t help because the first thing the installer does is to check if Windows Update...
Something I picked up on slashdot today: Microsoft is checking if people would want an 'instant on' version of Windows . As compelling as it sounds, I don't think it is that big a deal, and they shouldn't waste their time with it. These...
Yesterday I had to install VS2008 SP1 on a computer with limited disk space on C:\ Even though VS2008 itself was installed on D:\ the installer (which is 800MB) still required 3.3 GB of space on C:\ I molested C: until I had enough space to perform the...
I recently had to make an install script for one of my applications which manipulates the Active Directory. The app itself is executed via a scheduled batch file, and it expects the domain name as a command line parameter. I wanted the batch file to figure...
One of the things that comes with configuring software for a controlled environment is that every single thing involved has to be documented. Some people fail to realize what this means. It means that my installation cannot contain a trivial phrase like...
Last week we discovered that our weekly backup had failed. The only clue we had was the return code 0x1f. There were no log files, or messages in any of the event logs. It was already the second time this had happened, but the first time the return code...
Did you know that a Windows2003 Licensing server does not manage Terminal Server 'Per User' CALs? It is really stupid, but from a licensing point of view, a terminal server that is configured to use 'Per User' licenses only checks if it...
Last week I noticed an error in the domain controller event log with Event ID 11: Event Type: Error Event Source: KDC Event Category: None Event ID: 11 Date: 2/29/2008 Time: 1:43:18 PM User: N/A Computer: SE-DOMAINCONTROLLER01 Description: There are multiple...
I had to do a security change today which required each XP machine to first update its policies, and then reboot to make sure that the required changes went into effect immediately. To do the update I used psexec in conjunction with gpupdate /force to...
Last week I was redlining SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) on a test network for some of the Windows Domain specific situations we sometimes encounter on our process control network. This specific SOP handled Domain Controller promotion and demotion...
Today I got a phone call from one of the automation engineers, who told me that he couldn't connect to one of the terminal servers anymore. I set out to investigate, and while verything seemed to be in order, the server management page indicated that...
Yesterday I discovered 2 Group Policy gotchas the hard way.Since these things are not written down anywhere, I figured I'd post them on my blog.Note that I am not an enterprise level systems administrator. I am a systems administrator for a single...
One of the issues involved in running a pharmaceutical process network is that QA has to give its blessing to the network to allow your company to produce meds. For example, QA has to be convinced that all actions are auditable, that people don't...