AppLocker does NOT require a Windows Server 2008 R2 DC

Documentation from Microsoft regarding the new feature AppLocker in Windows 7 (and Windows Server 2008 R2) early stated that to be able to use AppLocker you must have a “Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller to host the AppLocker rules”. I have seen this information several times since then and at a seminar I payed a quick visit to yesterday regarding Windows 7 this particular questions was raised.

Of course I had to make sure what’s really going on here and I have now verified that AppLocker works perfectly fine in environments where there are only Windows Server 2003 DCs or Windows Server 2008 DCs. I can see no reason what so ever for AppLocker to require a Windows Server 2008 R2 DC to function. The only requirement is that you’re running Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate edition to be able to use th powerful feature of AppLocker.

When to troubleshoot blue screen crashes

The other day I got an email from a blog reader which contained the information of a successful analyze of a memory dump file which is generated when an infamous blue screen of death occur. The reader wanted me to give him the solution or point him in the direction of a solution. This got me into thinking. When is it worth putting time on doing blue screen analyzes?

The content of the crash dump is maybe not that relevant after all. What is more important is how often and when the blue screen of death occurs. If the crash occurred just once or very seldom and randomly I would say that it might not be worth finding out exactly what caused the crash. Keep in mind that a blue screen could indicate a hardware failure, although driver problems are the most common cause for crashes.

However if the crashes occur often or at when doing specific tasks you have all the reasons in the world to get to the bottom of the problem. In these cases I recommend following the guide for troubleshooting blue screen crashes.

An interesting thing to note about blue screens that start occurring after for instance upgrading the OS from Windows XP to Windows Vista or Windows 7 is that the new memory management in the later operating systems might reveal problems in the memory modules that did not show when using Windows XP.

Finally, whenever having problem with blue screens of death I would recommend upgrading the machine BIOS. Often there are compatibility and stability fixes which solves problems with hardware which might be causing you the problems you are experiencing.

WEBSPAPW = Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner

I guess you’re wondering what the heck “WEBSPAPW” stands for and it is nothing but “Windows Essential Business Server Preparation and Planning Wizards”. Microsoft has now come to the conclusion that this tool as I’ve written before was not only used for EBS migrations but also for general health checks in Active Directory environments. This has resulted in the name change to “Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner” which is built from the previous EBS tool.

When running the Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner you may find problems related to AD, DNS, replication and many other things and for everyone in charge of or controlling the IT environment this tool is strongly recommended. Read more on the EBS Blog.

Download: Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner

Install Windows client and server without product key

I just want to share a quick tip about something really smooth that many IT staff seems to be unaware of. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 introduced the fact that you can install it without entering a product key. This was later introduced in Windows XP (with service pack 3 slipstreamed) and also later Windows Server 2003 R2 media. Nothing about this changes for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. So to sum it up you can install all current as well as coming operating systems without entering a product key and you will then have up to 30 days to enter it.

Restore permissions on objects in Active Directory

Some time ago I had the unfortunate job to do some manual cleaning of an old and since long disconnected (and not decommissioned) Exchange Server in Active Directory using adsiedit.msc and this is not something one want to do I can promise you. Anyway during the testing phase I had to make sure that certain keys and values in adsiedit.msc were safe to be deleted and to accomplish this I removed all permissions on the keys to make sure that no one could read the information. You might think that restoring the permissions on objects in adsiedit.msc is the same as the management with file and folders but that is not the fact.

Instead use the command DSACLS to control the access control lists of Active Directory objects and run for example the following command to let the group Everyone get full permission on the object “First administrative group”.

DSACLS "CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative groups,CN=CONTOSO,
CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=CONTOSO,DC=LOCAL"
/G Everyone:GA

Beware when working in adsiedit.msc and be very certain about what you are doing before deleting stuff. Sometimes just removing all permissions on objects is the best way because then you can always use the above command to restore permission to the object(s).

Add users to local groups on the Windows clients easily

If you want to add domain users or groups to a local group on a Windows client machine automatically, this can be done using group policies. One reason could be to easily put groups or users to the local group Remote Desktop Users to allow them to log on via RDP. To control which users or groups you want to add create a new GPO in the domain and go to Computer configuration > (Policies) > Windows settings > Security settings > Restricted groups.

Once there choose to add a group and in my example find the “Remote Desktop Users” group and after that add the user or group you want to add to the local machines which that particular group policy object applies to. More information about restricted groups can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=810076

Use EBS migration tool to do a quick health check in your Active Directory

When preparing an existing Active Directory environment for migration to Windows Essential Business Server  one must run a tool which scan the environment and make sure that no errors exist before the migration can even start. This tool is called Windows Essential Business Server Preparation and Planning Wizards and can be downloaded from Microsoft Download Center without cost.

The thing is that this tool is a great utility to use in existing environments, even though they are not being migrated and never will be migrated to Windows EBs. The tool is a great health check and will most likely show errors or potential problems you had no idea existed in your server environment. It find problems with DNS, in Active Directory and replication and will guide you to recommended system changes and much more. I strongly recommend everyone to run it on your own environments to see what it finds.

Just a quick note related to scanning for errors and best practices is that the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 will include a number of best practices analyzers for roles such as DNS, Active Directory and many more. This is really slick!

Download Windows Essential Business Server Preparation and Planning Wizards

HOW TO: Clean out Windows\Installer folder correctly

When disk space is running out on a system disk, may it be on a server or a client, there are certain things to clean out. One of them being the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Installer folder. You cannot under any circumstances delete files from this folder manually as this not only may but most likely will break software that is installed using MSI files, or Windows Installer files.

The %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Installer folder is a cache for installation files and patches (MSP files) and removing those will cause you to not being able to repair or uninstall applications, and in some cases not removing patches or applying new patches to software. In the event when you actually did delete this cache you can rebuild the files you need manually by extracting the files from original installation media, from patch packages etc but this is a time consuming and not that easy task to accomplish.

But let me get to the point. If you do want to free disk space you can clean out the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Installer folder by downloading Windows Installer Cleanup Utility and then running the command

msizap.exe G!

When running this, the installer and patch packages are enumerated and unreferenced packages are considered to be safe to delete and are thereby also deleted. Depending on the age of the system and the number of applications installed, this action can free a significant amount of disk space.

Hide files and folders which users don’t have permission to

The other day I implemented the Microsoft tool Access-based Enumeration tool for the first time with a customer. The tool installs on Windows Server 2003 and present you with a new tab when you choose Properties on shares on the server. When activated it will make sure that users on their client computers don’t see files and folders in Windows Explorer to which they do not have permission.

Download the Access-based Enumeration tool

Workflow problem in SharePoint finally resolved

In my latest posts I’ve been talking about the now released infrastructure for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, an update that would solve the automatic workflow problem once and for all. The problem with workflows not being run automatically is now solved, but be aware that installing the infrastructure update (KB951695) alone does not resolve the problem.

To permanently resolve the problem one must also apply the command that is mentioned in KB953289: A declarative workflow that is configured to start automatically when e-mail enabled items are created does not start automatically after you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1.