unified groups are apparently some kind of strange abomination that’s like 3/4 exchange online and 1/4 sharepoint online. in other words, this group doesn’t seem to exclusively exist in either application. the concept is cool but the there’s a huge downside (at least to me) is that by default users can create these groups and […]

i updated aadsync recently because i learned the newest version includes an auto-update feature. the process to upgrade is pretty self explanatory the only thing of note i can mention is that the installer probably ran somewhere between 20-30 minutes which i thought was strange at the time. after the upgrade completed i learned that […]

WDS can be operated from the commandline with “wdsutil”. at least in 2012 there are no WDS powershell cmdlets. two required wim files: boot.wim – winpe install.wim – OS instructions for adding a boot wim to WDS: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11643.how-to-add-a-boot-image-to-wds-server.aspx WSUS force a client to check in with the WSUS server: wuauclt /reportnow /detectnow

i recall the process of viewing which users had what files open on a file server being straight forward in 2008. in 2012 it’s not so much. to bring up a Shared Folders mmc in 2012 run fsmgmt.msc source: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3cfqfj/how_do_i_view_open_sessionsshared_files_on_server/

migrating to office365: user account must be synced (dirsync/aadsync) on-prem mailbox needs to have domains not added to office365 tenant removed exchange online license applied outlook client users with a cloud mailbox will need to enter their credentials at least once after the migration takes place. as of oct 2015, onboarding is maxed at 1GB/hour […]

backups are done by the windows server backup utility which must be installed as a windows feature. a system state backup will be sufficient for backing up active directory. the other backup options are for bare metal restore scenarios. to restore a system state backup, boot to the directory services restore mode and login with […]

i think i’ve previously noted this, but i will do so again. office365 does not really allow you to alter a federated user and in some scenarios this can be frustrating. to retrieve the immutableid of an office365 user: get-msoluser -userprincipalname [upn] | fl to blank out the immutable id of a user: set-msoluser -userprincipalname […]

the browse/search OUs listing when creating a new user is blank. solution: edit c:\program files\microsoft\exchange server\v15\clientaccess\ecp\web.config on servers holding the CAS role. adding following entry: add key=”GetListDefaultResultSize” value=”1000″ source: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/15b66332-16e5-4c76-a84d-a4221ffa43dc/not-able-to-see-all-organizational-units-when-trying-to-create-mail-objects-in-ecp?forum=exchangesvradmin

run this first if you haven’t already: Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned you’ll probably want to switch back to Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted once done then: $UserCredential = Get-Credential $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection Import-PSSession $Session at this point run desired PS cmdlets like so: Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity [UPN] to end the session: Remove-PSSession […]

steps: create a request.inf like so ;—————– request.inf —————– [Version] Signature=”$Windows NT$ [NewRequest] Subject = “CN=*.mydomain.com, C=US, S=Florida, L=Beach City, O=Some Company” ; replace with the FQDN of the DC KeySpec = 1 KeyLength = 2048 ; Can be 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, or 16384. ; Larger key sizes are more secure, but have ; […]