TechNet Magazine Spring 2005

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Set Different Default Printers for Different Locations

If you use your laptop in more than one location, Windows 7 will let you set a different default printer for each network that you access. Find out how to do this. ...

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Uncover Memory-Related Bottlenecks

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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Troubleshoot Database Mount Problems

If a database won’t mount, it could be because a required log file is missing or because the database is corrupted. You can diagnose many database mount problems using the Troubleshooting Assistant. ...

Files can’t be moved or deleted when they’re in use. Find out how you can move and delete those tricky files that are always in use. ...

Auditing in Exchange Server offers many options for tracking important information. We show you all of them and how to configure the policy you want in seven simple steps. ...

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Popular Articles

Virtualization: Achieving High Availability for Hyper-V

Consolidating servers onto fewer physical machines has many advantages, but it is extremely important that you plan for your systems to be highly available. Here’s a guide to using Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering to bring high availability to your Hyper-V virtual machines.

Steven Ekren

TechNet Magazine October 2008

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Windows PowerShell: Trapping Errors

Learn how you can implement error-handling in Windows PowerShell.

Don Jones

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Without too much effort, you can deploy a terminal server to host the applications you need in your environment. But there are some important decisions you’ll need to make to ensure your implementation meets user expectations. Greg Shields discusses the various options you have and explains how they will affect you.

Greg Shields

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Virtualization brings significant changes to disaster recovery. Here’s an introduction to how the Microsoft virtualization platform factors into your disaster recovery plan, as well as a deeper look into backup and restore options and considerations for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

Adam Fazio

TechNet Magazine October 2008

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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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Our Blog

Geek of all Trades: Control Network Access Using DHCP Enforcement

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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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Forefront Security

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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Spring 2005

Windows Administration: Breathe New Life Into Your Server! From Windows NT To Windows Server 2003

If you're moving up from Windows NT to Windows Server 2003, you'll be pleasantly surprised. But before making the move, find out what you need to consider first and get the best migration strategies for your needs. Jonathan Hassell

Windows Administration: Secure Your Desktops With The New Group Policy Settings In SP2

Group Policy lets you control who can access resources across your network and what types of actions users can perform based on their roles. New settings in Windows XP SP2 offer even tighter control so you can regulate more and worry less. Jeremy Moskowitz

Windows Administration: Redundancy On A Budget: Implementing A RAID File Server

Did you know that you can implement a fault-tolerant departmental file server on a low-end desktop PC? All you need is RAID, Windows Server 2003, a PC, and an extra hard drive, and you're good to go. Robert Walker

Windows Administration: Preserve Your Data With The Backup Tool You Already Have

If you're running Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows Server 2003, you already have Ntbackup. It's time to dispel some of the myths about how it works so you can get good, efficient backups without blowing your software budget. Jay Shaw

Windows Administration: 10 Easy Ways To Lock Down Your Computer

Here are 10 important Group Policy settings you can start using for more secure user passwords, authentication, user privileges, and persistence of GPO settings. Derek Melber

SQL Server: Reduce Downtime: Implement SQL Server 2000 On A Cluster

Running SQL Server 2000 on a Windows Server 2003 Server failover cluster will get you more uptime by alleviating your reliance on a single server. Stephen Strong

SQL Server: XML To The Max: Get More Power Out Of Your SQL Server

Using the SQL Server 2000 T-SQL syntax, you can manipulate XML in a variety of ways. For example, you can access data contained in an XML string passed into a stored procedure and produce XML output. Find out what these flexible, powerful XML features can do for you. Ward Pond

SQL Server: Get A Traffic Report: Analyze Your Database Usage With System Tables

By querying data from the master.sysprocesses table you can get almost any information you need about connections to your SQL database, what each process is doing, which processes are blocking, and lots more. Then you can use this data to create some truly enlightening reports. Matt Evans and Josh Moody

SQL Server: Async Lifestyle: Manage Your Tasks With Service Broker

SQL Server 2005 Service Broker is more than just a developer tool. DBAs can use it to schedule tasks, run batch processing, and perform routine database maintenance. Roger Wolter

SQL Server: On The Horizon: Improved Data Security In SQL Server 2005

Microsoft has performed extensive threat modeling and security analysis to identify the threats facing database servers. This work has resulted in an upcoming version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2005, that is secure by design. This article enumerates the various security improvements to the popular database. Don Kiely

Exchange for Experts: Be The Master Of Your Domain Rename With Exchange

Domain renaming is not only possible, it's actually easier than you think, especially with this handy guide to the process and the right tool—Rendom.exe, which can be found on your Windows Server 2003 CD. Steve Schiemann

Exchange for Experts: Migration, Active Directory, And You: A Guide for Exchange Admins

You can use the Active Directory Migration tool to migrate users, computers, and groups from one domain to another. Plus, the new version of the tool lets you migrate user passwords as well as accounts, which makes the Exchange Server migration process a whole lot easier. Nino Bilic

Columns

From the Editor: A few months ago, we launched the first issue of TechNet Magazine, the Microsoft magazine for IT pros. At the time, we were cautiously optimistic about what we were doing, but we were also anxious to see how the people who make everything run—the IT superheroes—would react to the new publication that ended up on their desks.	Letters: It's about time that a tech magazine showed the "how to" and "why" for Windows administrators. I'd like to see issues that cover Application Center in detail in the future. Also, please show ways to integrate Windows Active Directory and Novell eDirectory.	Toolbox: New Products For IT Professionals www.gpsoft.com.au Marnie Hutcheson
Utility Spotlight: Limit Login Attempts With LimitLogin Ever needed to limit concurrent user logins in an Active Directory® domain? Ever wanted to keep track of information about every login in a domain? If so, LimitLogin is for you.	SQL Q&A: Troubleshooting Connections, Using Variables, And More Your queries answered by Microsoft IT professionals. Edited by Nancy Michell	How IT Works: Decoding TCP/IP TCP/IP is comprised of a set of protocols including Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Internet Protocol (IP), and Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP). Most IT professionals understand how these protocols work together to make network communication possible. Don Parker
Beta Box: Discover SQL Server 2005 Express Edition One of the most promising updates to a Microsoft product this year is SQL Server™ 2005 (formerly known by its code-name "Yukon"). SQL Server 2005 will come in a variety of versions, supporting many different types of deployments from the desktop to the enterprise datacenter. Brian Randell	Post Mortem: Migrating 240,000 Mailboxes And 29 Domains I recently participated in a project with a large agency of the United States federal government as they migrated and consolidated their servers from Exchange Server 5. 5 to Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003. Dennis Swenson	Blog Tales: A Guide To Public Folder Tools Are you an Exchange Server op who's confused by different public folder tools? With all the various public folder tools out there, it can be difficult to remember what each tool can be used for. Let's straighten it all out now. Bill Long
How IT Works: A Primer On SQL Joins One of the trickiest things about learning SQL is mastering how various JOIN statements differ in the ways they combine data from multiple data tables. There are three types of joins: inner, outer, and cross. Joshua Trupin	Serving the Web: Get It Right The First Time With IIS 6.0 Server administrators are always on a quest for the secret formula that will solve their performance woes. But no matter what you may have heard, there is no magic pixie dust. Yet the promises keep rolling in, even though few results are delivered. Chris Adams	InterOp: Windows Services For UNIX If you're an administrator working in a mixed environment, Microsoft® Windows® Services for UNIX (SFU) 3. 5 can make your life a lot easier. SFU provides a full-featured interoperability solution that includes a Network File Server (NFS) client, server and gateway for file system interoperability, and a Network Information Service (NIS). Charlie Russel
Security Watch: Isolate Servers With IPsec We live in an age of always-connected communication and are able to send e-mail messages or gain access to files, databases, and Web pages at any time, through a proliferation of networking technologies. Joseph Davies	Resources: IIS 6.0 Performance Tune-Up By now you've probably gotten to know IIS 6. 0, available in all versions of Windows Server™ 2003, and are taking advantage of much that this Web server offers. It's important to keep an eye on the overall goal of IIS 6. Phil Sherwood	TechNet Live Events Roundup: Vacation 1.0 I know the last thing you want to do over the summer is to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day, listening to an instructor drone on, especially when you'd rather be waiting in line for Star Wars: Episode III. Kai Axford
TechNet Update: Highlights From The Microsoft IT Community The volume of desktop deployment information on the TechNet site can seem overwhelming, and at times it might be difficult to find exactly the information you need. Here we will point you to some of the most popular sites on TechNet, which should help in your search.	Field Notes: IT and Life Experiences IT pros don't write code. IT pros don't develop applications, and we certainly don't want anything to do with mathematical algorithms and binary search trees. We leave that to the dev geeks with CompSci PhDs and cases of Mountain Dew under their desk. Joshua Hoffman