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How to become a PFE (worth reading if you are job hunting)
Hi all, Ned here. Greg Jaworski has posted an informative read for those looking to join the ranks of Microsoft Premier Field Engineering. They are always hiring and if your New Year's resolution...
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Friday Mail Sack: It’s a Dog’s Life Edition
Hi folks, Ned here again with some possibly interesting, occasionally entertaining, and always unsolicited Friday mail sack. This week we talk some: DNS partition absence Controlling DCDIAG event...
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RPC over IT/Pro
Hi folks, Ned here again to talk about one of the most commonly used – and least understood – network protocols in Windows: Remote Procedure Call. Understanding RPC is a foundation for any successful...
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Security Compliance Manager 2.5 Beta is out
Hi folks, Ned here with a quickie advert: The Security Compliance Manager 2.5 beta released the other day, with a bunch of new features and other goo. Integration with the System Center 2012 IT GRC...
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If you use Symantec Products, Read Me
Ned here again, with a public service announcement similar to the previous one we did for RSA as it implicitly affects so many Microsoft customers. Symantec has announced: Symantec can confirm that a...
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Friday Mail Sack: Carl Sandburg Edition
Hi folks, Jonathan again. Ned is taking some time off visiting his old stomping grounds – the land of Mother-in-Laws and heart-breaking baseball. Or, as Sandburg put it: “Hog Butcher for the World,...
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Purging Old NT Security Protocols
Hi folks, Ned here again (with some friends). Everyone knows that Kerberos is Microsoft’s preeminent security protocol and that NTLM is both inefficient and, in some iterations, not strong enough to...
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Friday Mail Sack: Get Off My Lawn Edition
Hi folks, Ned here again. I know this is supposed to be the Friday Mail Sack but things got a little hectic and... ah heck, it doesn't need explaining, you're in IT. This week - with help from the...
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Friday Mail Sack: VROOM VROOM Edition
Hi folks, Jonathan here again. Ned’s a little busy right now trying to get items off the top shelf of the cabinet, I thought I’d grab some responses he was working on off this desk and put this week’s...
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Congrats Sean and Mark, the Newest Masters!
Hey all, Ned here again. You probably know our pals Sean Ivey and Mark Renoden from their AskDS blog contributions. Both of them were once Directory Services Support Engineers and are now Premier Field...
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Windows Server “8” Beta announcements, availability (updated)
Hi all, Ned here. For those who spent the day in a coma, Windows Server “8” Beta and Windows 8 CP are out. Make sure you start by visiting Bill Laing’s announcement on the Windows Server Blog. This...
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Unresponsive Servers due to DST and an unsupported registry key
Hi, David here to tell you about a thorny little problem that a few of our customers have run into during their testing for the upcoming Daylight Saving Time changes. For reference, the US enters DST...
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The yuck that is "PC Recycle Day" at Microsoft
Hey all, Ned here again. Still no ETA on Win8 word, and we've already discussed everything else on Earth ( ;-P ) so now I will share with you some insider knowledge of working in Microsoft Charlotte:...
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Gimme Some Sugar
Hi all, Ned here again. Like Bruce Campbell, we’ve been away for awhile, but you can always count on us to return for the sequel. Some of the Windows Server “8” Beta blogging rules have been relaxed...
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Group Policy Management Improvements in Windows Server "8" Beta
Hi all, Ned here again. If you've been supporting group policy for years, you’ve grown used to its behaviors. For something designed to manage an enterprise, its initial implementation wasn’t easy to...
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Your 24 Month XP Warning
Hi all, Ned here again with a public service announcement: On April 8th 2014, Windows XP support ends For the temporally challenged, that’s exactly two years from today. Hopefully, some of you don’t...
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New USMT 5.0 Features for Windows 8 Consumer Preview
Hi all, Ned here again. Frequent readers know that I’ve written many times about the User State Migration Tool; it’s surprising to some, but the Directory Services team owns supporting this tool within...
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Saturday Mail Sack: Because it turns out, Friday night was alright for fighting
Hello all, Ned here again with our first mail sack in a couple months. I have enough content built up here that I actually created multiple posts, which means I can personally guarantee there will be...
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Exclusive! Shocking New Windows Names Revealed!!!
Ok, that might have been a slightly inflammatory and somewhat misleading title. Windows 8 is now officially called... Windows 8. The full set of edition names are Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8...
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How to NOT Use Win32_Product in Group Policy Filtering
Hi all, Ned here again. I have worked many slow boot and slow logon cases over my career. The Directory Services support team here at Microsoft owns a sizable portion of those operations - user...
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