Windows server 2008 R2 Active Directory – Recycle Bin Feature

Sometimes you delete user from AD and it could cause a big headache 🙂

Well… No more. Windows server 2008 R2 Beta – which is by the way already publicly available has a new functional level for AD that allows you to activate so called Recycle Bin Feature…
In this demo you will se my AD server with a domain called demoadps.local on which I will enable this feature. As I mentioned before – functional level should be Windows server 2008 R2.

Watch the video

First of all you need to enable the feature by typing a Powershell cmdlet/command:

Enable-ADOptionalFeature ‘Recycle Bin Feature’ -Scope Forest -Target ‘domain.local‘

after that you can check for deleted items by typing:

Get-ADObject -SearchBase “CN=Deleted Objects,DC=domain,DC=local” -ldapFilter “(objectClass=*)” -includeDeletedObjects | FT ObjectGUID,Name -A

This will show you the deleted objects which you can restore by entering:

Restore-ADObject -Identity 6ff46162-15c2-4d42-8e15-2fcac5c8422e

** domain.local should be changed with your domain name
6ff46162-15c2-4d42-8e15-2fcac5c8422e should be changed with a ID that matches your deleted object…

To make it simplier I have recorded a video tutorial to do that…

Hyper-V server 2008 R2 beta is available!!! (with Hyper-V v2.0)

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Here it comes powerfull and with new so desperately awaited features… Hyper-V 2.0…

http://www.virtualization.info/2009/01/microsoft-releases-hyper-v-20-and.html

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Demo-Hyper-V-Server-and-Live-Migration/

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/downloads.mspx

Take a look / give it a try!

PS. take a look at new redesigned Microsoft Virtualization site… Where you can find all information about all MS virtualization products …:

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx

0X8004010F weekend – Windows server 2008, Exchange 2007 SP1

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This weekend I was playing crawler… I know almost all internet sites describing the problems around 0X8004010F – damn error regarding Offline address book distribution…

But nowhere I have encountered the problem describing this error code in combination with Windows Server 2008 and Exchange 2007 SP1 with rollup 5.

Well… As I figured out it apparently does not work – if you want OAB to be distributed by Web-based distribution…

You get this error in your Outlook 2007 SP1 clients (on Windows XP and on Windows Vista)

As I can see there is somekind of permission problem becoues OAB virtual directory points to:

C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerClientAccessOAB

This directory has NO NTFS permissions for Auhtenticated users… but in IIS there is on this folder a parameter: Pass-through authentication – but as I know it can not work becouse your credentials are not covered in NTFS permissions of that folder.

But it does not work even if you give NTFS permissions to authenticated users… (you are still prompted for username and password in Outlook…)

Maybe I am missing something but weekend is almost over and my users need to use Exchange and RPC over HTTP(s) feature in their Outlooks tomorow… What I did is that I disabled Web-based distribution of Offline address book and I left only Public folder distribution. It took a couple of minutes for autodiscover.xml to update and Outlooks to get new parameters about Offline address book distribution.

Everything works correctly now…

Comments / suggestions appriaciated…

PS.
Hey all you Exchangegurus!
I think you will find this link useful: https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/

Windows server 2008 AD with Exchange 2007 SP1

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Yes! I managed to make it work…
Exchange transport won’t start if you are installing Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows server 2008 with Active directory on it even if you UNCHECK IPv6 on your network card properties…
The installation won’t complete… 😦

You need to do it this way:

1. Uncheck Internet protocol version 6 (TCP/IPv6) in your network card properties

2. Delete localhost value for ipv6 in file called HOSTS in C:WindowsSystem32driversetc

::1             localhost

or comment it by using # at the start of line

3. Create/add a 32 bit DWORD with name DisabledComponents and value 0xFFFFFFFF to:
HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesTcpip6Parameters

My setup was Windows server 2008 standard as Hyper-V platform, inside Windows server 2008 standard with Active directory in functional level 2008 – everything updated and clean.

When I changed this three parameters exchange setup completed sucessfuly and now my testing Exchange 2007 is working! Wiiiii!!! 🙂

Windows server 2008 – TS Gateway

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I would like to share with you fantastic experince of using Terminal services gateway – a new feature of Windows server 2008 terminal services.
It does allow user to use gateway that listens on port 443 (HTTPS / SSL) and then “route” remote desktop protocol to workstations inside network and FOR ME GREAT FEATURE even on other servers on the internet (so now you can lock RDP client to your IP address (where you have your TS Gateway server) and you will be able to access your servers through your TS Gateway and in this way even more secure your remote access).

I hope you will enjoy this fantastic feature!

To understand better I have some pictures to show…
(here you can download Visio files if you need to reedit something)

WAN to LAN example …

From Windows server 2008 – TS Gateway examples

WAN to LAN & WAN example …

From Windows server 2008 – TS Gateway examples