Memory is often the source of performance problems, and you should always rule out memory problems before examining other areas of the system. Here’s an overview of counters that you’ll want to track to uncover memory, caching, and virtual memory (paging) bottlenecks. ...

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Discover how you can service Windows images and prepare Windows PE images with the new Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) command line tool available with Windows 7. ...

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Find out how Dynamic Driver Provisioning in Windows 7 can help you reduce the size of images and simplify image managament by reducing the number of images you maintain, ...

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Here are seven best practices that will help you get the most out of your servers hosting the Hyper-V role. ...

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All users, groups, and contacts can be members of other groups. To configure a group’s membership, follow these steps. ...

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See how the free Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager can help you easily copy, delete, and back up files from a flash drive, as well as perform other useful tasks.

Lance Whitney

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Security principals underlie so much of Windows security that it is essential for any administrator to have at least a basic understanding of how the various types of Security principals work and how they are used. Here's what you need to know.

Jesper M. Johansson

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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SQL Server 2008 includes a new “eventing” mechanism called SQL Server Extended Events that enables some sophisticated troubleshooting. Get an overview of Extended Events and find out how you can use this new functionality for monitoring and troubleshooting.

Paul S. Randal

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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The upcoming release of Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager “2” offers many new features and enhancements. Explore the new portal experience and find out how you can cut costs with self-service tools, increase security compliance with business process modeling, and reduce development time with simplified development tools.

Aung Oo

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Drivers fail, files get corrupted, disks crash--there are numerous uncontrollable reasons why Windows might fail. But all is not lost. Wes Miller explores the kinds of things that can go wrong in a Windows system, and explains how you can troubleshoot them to get your system working again.

Wes Miller

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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NAP monitors the health of specified computers when they attempt to connect to a network and includes a number of mechanisms to enforce health requirements. In this article, Geek of All Trades Greg Shields gives readers an overview of these enforcement mechanisms and, as an example, takes a closer look at setting ...

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Use Windows PowerShell to Manage Virtual Machines Here are a few examples of how you can use Windows PowerShell scripts to manage virtual machines running on a Server Core installation. Note that these scripts are presented as samples and may need to be customized to work in your environment.

Create a New ...

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Disabling an Unused Part of Group Policy Objects One way to disable a policy is to disable an unused part of the GPO. By disabling part of a policy that isn’t used, the application of GPOs and security will be faster.

Administer Windows Server 2008 Server Core from the Command Prompt ...

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In the August 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Paul Randal wrote an article Top Tips for Effective Database Maintenance.  It was geared toward "involuntary  DBAs" (IT pros who inadvertently wind up responsible for a SQL Server instance).  The article had a great response from our readers so Paul has written another ...

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Microsoft Forefront is designed to deliver an integrated security solution that makes it much easier to deploy and manage security across an organization’s IT infrastructure. In this, our annual security issue, we feature two articles that describe how Forefront Security protects instant messaging and e-mail.

Protect ...

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