Sysadmin Lab

My lab environment and my findings

bookmark bookmark

  • So you're migrating to a shiny new Exchange environment and you reach the part of Public Folders. Microsoft haven't spent much time developing Public Folders lately and they tend to be a pain managing. So you write down  7 reasons, or even 10 reasons and bring it to your boss and he agree - get rid of those Public Folders! But where do you start? Here are some real world tip and experiences. Not that technical but rather guide on how to [...]

  • If you are one of those who really don't like using the serial number of the computer itself as computer name, a classic alternative is to manually set counting serial numbers. Starting at 01 or 001 and counting upwards. If you're not using the database, there's no built in feature for this in MDT. Here's a small script that takes care of that. Just add the script in your MDT Task Sequence. Preferably after the Windows installation and before the [...]

  • I often get to configure IMAP on mail environments. The easiest way to test if it works is to use telnet (using built-in or Putty). First, connect to port 143: telnet IMAPserver.domain.com 143 Then run the following to authenticate, list mails and quit. Just change whatever you need in red, domain is not always needed if you have one domain. * OK The Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 service is ready. . LOGIN DOMAIN\username password . OK LOGIN completed. . SELECT Inbox * [...]

My top Windows shortcuts as an effective Sysadmin

Posted by Admin On February - 13 - 2012 2 Comments
Right_click_Mark_Quick_Edit01

To be an effective administrator you should know about these shortcuts. It will save you a lot of headache. Please comment if you have more... I call this... path from hell Problem: Imagine you're browing to this file in Explorer: C:\Temp\Folder1\Testing\very\long\shortcut\hereismyfile.txt. You need to copy the full path to a script or documentation. Solution: Just shift+right-click and choose Copy as path. No more right-click, choose Create shortcut, Properties on that and copy'n'paste the Target path. And no more selecting the [...]

READ FULL STORY

Lastname Firstname instead of Firstname Lastname with Exchange 2007/2010

Posted by Admin On February - 11 - 2012 0 Comment
Lastname_Firstname_displayname_Exchange_2003_2007_2010_02

Some countries prefer their Exchange Address Book, displayName and cn to be: Lastname Firstname With Exchange 2003, this was easy to fix by following KB250455 which in short meant using adsiedit.msc to change Configuration Container -> Configuration -> cn=DisplaySpecifiers -> CN=409 and opening properties for CN=user-Display, scrolling down to createDialog and setting the attribute to: %<sn> %<givenName> So when you created the users with ADUC you got the expected result. But with Exchange 2007/2010 when creating the Active Directory user [...]

READ FULL STORY

Which Global Catalog (GC) is my Exchange 2010 using?

Posted by Admin On February - 2 - 2012 0 Comment
Which_Global_Catalog_is_Exchange_2010_using2

Sometimes it's necessary to figure out which Global Catalog (GC) your Exchange 2010 is using. Open EMC Go to Server Configuration, right-click each server and choose Properties and go to System Settings tab. You can also look for Event ID Event ID 2080 in the Application logfile and KB316300 gives you an idea what this means. To force it to use a specific GC: Open EMC Right-click Organization Configuration and choose Modify Configuration Domain Controller: Choose the default (Exchange will [...]

READ FULL STORY