Free IT Book: Stealing the Network
This week’s free IT book is a little bit different than the ones we usually feature. Stealing the Network from Sygress contains fictional stories of real life possibilities meant to inspire security and technology pros alike to wonder and muse on the what ifs of security vulnerabilities. For a chance to win this thought-provoking series, [...]

Answer Question   |  February 3, 2011  2:43 PM
Active Directory, Auditing (compliance), Giveaways, IT Books, Network security, Network Security Management, Outlook 2010, Routers, USB drive, Windows Server 2008

Active Directory network error: “Failed to Contact Domain Controller”
Occasionally users can not log in to our 2008 Active Directory network. They get a failed to contact a domain controller. We have two AD boxes and when this happens no one can log on. It lasts a few minutes at most. How can we troubleshoot and resolve this issue?

Answer Question   |  January 5, 2011  5:00 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory 2008, Active Directory Administration, Active Directory errors, Network connectivity

Better way to enroll users in Active Directory
I have just reviewed the steps given to me by my Network Admin for enrolling a new user in A/D and I can’t believe it’s this complicated and requires this many steps. The summary steps are : 1. On the A/D server open the A/D users and computers 2. Add the user entering his name, [...]

Answer Question   |  December 30, 2010  4:46 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory Administration, Active Directory Users and Computers, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Scanning Active Directory for weak passwords
Is it possible to scan our active directory and see if people have weak passwords? We have upped the password policy but what about for users that already have passwords and are not scheduled to changed them yet?

Answer Question   |  December 29, 2010  9:06 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory security, Network security, Network Security Management, Network Security Policies, Password Complexity, Password policies

Active Directory site with Child Domain
I have 3 AD servers, one forest, one tree, one site My main AD server holds all of the FSMO roles.Until now, there hasn’t been a need to have any sort of sync or network connection between our office and any of our other offices. we’ve been asked to support their network, possibly long-term. They [...]

Answer Question   |  February 6, 2011  4:03 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory Deployment, Active Directory Users and Computers, Child Domain, Windows Server Management

Moving orphan home drives in Windows Server 2003 Active Directory to a folder to delete
I am trying to do a home directory clean up and trying to find out a good and quick step by step way  to get all the orphans users’ home drives who are not attached to any users account from AD and move them to a specific folder where I can delete them. I also prefer not [...]

Answer Question   |  December 15, 2010  9:39 AM
Active Directory, Active Directory Users, Home Directory, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 administration

Active Directory Re-Design/Architecture/Migrate
Hi, We are working on a Windows 2000  AD which consists of single forest containing 10 domain. Other then the root the child domains are division specific and are having two-way trusts. The domain servers are connected via Web links. The domains are not managed centrally and require seperate accounts for administration to access each domain. [...]

Answer Question   |  February 4, 2011  9:15 AM
Active Directory, Active Directory Deployment, Active Directory migration, Windows Server 2000

Adding remote branches to our network
We use Active Directory, DHCP, network printers, software and file servers. We want to add two more branches to our network, so users get IP addresses by DHCP and assigned to AD server. How can we create them like remote branches without giving same subnet to remote users? We want VPN connection on our router [...]

Answer Question   |  August 16, 2011  4:21 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory interoperability, DHCP, Network security, Network security appliances, Network Security Management, VPN, VPN connectivity, VPN security

Home directory clean up on Active Directory Windows Server 2003
I am looking to clean up a large amount of user home directories. I am trying to find a way to find user directories that belong to disabled user accounts or belong to no user account at all. Does anyone have a process for this or know of a utility that will generate a report [...]

Answer Question   |  December 13, 2010  8:58 AM
Active Directory, Group Policy, Home Directory, Windows Server 2003

Creating temporary Windows Server 2008 Active Directory accounts
How can we place expirations on user accounts? We want to make temporary Windows Server 2008 Active Directory accounts for technicians in our data center. We want them to expire in one hour from first login. Is this possible?

Answer Question   |  December 10, 2010  5:33 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory Account Lockout, Network security, Windows Network Administration, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Windows Server 2008 Administration

Creating a backup DNS server on Windows Server 2008 Active directory network
On a windows 2008 ad network how do we create a backup dns server? Can we have it answer queries automatically if the first one is not available? Is replication automatic?

Answer Question   |  June 27, 2011  3:19 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory backup, Backup Server, DNS, DNS Backup, DNS server, Network Backup, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

Exchange 2003 forward email problem
I have auto forwarding on Exchange 2003. i.e. joe@mywork.com forwards to joe@hotmail.com. This was set up using a contact in active directory,then setting up the user exchange settings. I have four people set up like this and it works most of the time. Except every now and again, if a email is sent from a [...]

Answer Question   |  December 9, 2010  4:40 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory Settings, Exchange 2003, Exchange Forwarding, Sophos

Recovering an administrator password for Active Directory
If the administrator password for an Active Directory box is lost what is the process for recovering it? Can it be done?

Answer Question   |  December 9, 2010  2:48 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory Administration, Active Directory security, Network security, Password recovery

Setting up a message once users login to their Active Directory workstations
We want to display a message after users successfully log in to Active Directory and their workstations. Can this be done? where can we set this logon text?

Answer Question   |  November 29, 2010  6:19 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory User Profiles, Active Directory Users, Active Directory Users and Computers, Login screen

Preventing users from installing Flash through SonicWALL or Barracuda
We want to prevent users from installing or running flash. Can we block all flash from the sonicwall firewall or our barracuda web filter? We also want to block downloading the installer/ running the installer. This is on an Active Directory 2003 network with Windows XP SP3 clients.

Answer Question   |  December 13, 2010  3:47 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory 2003, Barracuda, Firewalls, SonicWALL, Web filtering, Windows XP SP3

Creating template of Active Directory user
I want to create a template of an Active Directory user and use that to start when adding a new user instead of the blank template we get now. Basically login script, office address and that kind of stuff everyone should have.

Answer Question   |  October 25, 2011  3:39 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory scripting, Active Directory User Profiles, Active Directory Users, Login scripts

Setting up NTP time source for Windows Server 2008 Active Directory network
How do you set the NTP time source for a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory network and force all clients to sync to the 2008 ad server for time? Will this keep the network in sync for Kerberos?

Answer Question   |  April 19, 2013  3:34 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory 2008, Kerberos, Network Authentication, NTP, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

How to query Active Directory for all members of a particular group?
Hi All, How to query Active Directory for all members of a particular group lets say all users of the remote desktop Users group Cheers Shane

Answer Question   |  November 17, 2010  11:13 AM
Active Directory, Active Directory Administration, Active Directory Groups, Active Directory query, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition

Backing up DNS zones from Active Directory 2003 network
How can we back up our DNS zones from an Active Directory 2003 network? DNS is AD integrated.

Answer Question   |  November 10, 2010  3:56 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory 2003, DNS, DNS management, DNS server

Monitoring bandwidth with Cisco Firewall
Why the CISCO ASDM 6.2.5 Version firewall is not stopping https websites. How can we give access to our students to user wise login. how can we monitor internet bandwidth by user wise & timings. We have AD in the picture. Note: Any user accessing the internet because of AD Given authentication.

Answer Question   |  November 10, 2010  1:43 PM
Active Directory, Active Directory Permissions, ASDM, Bandwidth monitoring, Cisco Firewall, Cisco Firewall Service Modules (FWSMs)