Sharing Active Directory Best Practices
I’m sure I’ll run in to this one, especially since I use PC’s that aren’t joined to the domain. I’m going to probably put this in my Powershell profile to avoid waiting for it to load and potential error messages.
For more information contact us at www.webactivedirectory.com, or call us at (+1) 800-747-3565
A super simple way to make sure you aren’t handing out an IP address via DHCP that is already in use…if you are using Windows as a DHCP server you’d be a fool not to use this.
Note: this only works for IPv4 and if your client firewall drops ICMP then it won’t work either.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff606371.aspx
For more information contact us at www.webactivedirectory.com, or call us at (+1) 800-747-3565
Cool little website to search for available Group Policies, a bit faster than using the filter option in the Group Policy Management Console.
If you’re like me and you use Citrix products and have been looking forward to trying the Citrix Receiver for the iPad then you might have the same issue I did. I have always used a Windows client when using the Receiver or Online Plug-in. Well…it turns out that the Receiver on the iPad doesn’t like it when you are using a GoDaddy certificate and don’t have the intermediate certificate on the Access Gateway. So…if you’re getting an error “you have not chosen to trust go daddy secure certification authority” what you need to do is link the intermediate certificate to the certificate you’re handing out. Follow the link below, it will work for Netscaler and Access Gateway.
I honestly had never given this any thought but it sounds like a great idea to do in corporate environments. There are so many Group Policy objects I never even noticed it.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=2795&tag=content;leftCo
For more information contact us at www.webactivedirectory.com, or call us at (+1) 800-747-3565
I’m working on my next Active Directory Health Check article and I came across this article which applies to one of the areas we review as part of an Active Directory Health Check.
Check it out!
http://daniellange.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/auditing-gpo-inheritance-with-powershell/
For more information contact us at www.webactivedirectory.com, or call us at (+1) 800-747-3565
This article includes a command line example of how to backup group policy, now you can schedule it using a powershell cmdlet too… 
http://www.xenappblog.com/2010/how-to-backup-and-restore-group-policy/
I know we’ve posted a few times on this topic but I came across another script that retrieves the Active Directory password expiration. The main difference is that this script allows you to fileter, sort, export, or group the results of the query.
If you are looking for a tool to send email reminders to your users before their password expires check out http://www.webactivedirectory.com and our PeopleMinder product which completely automates this process!
http://theexpertscommunity.com/item/view/id/2192
For more information contact us at www.webactivedirectory.com, or call us at (+1) 800-747-3565
PowershellPack is a free download with some additional Powershell cmdlets like TaskScheduler which is just what it sounds like, a cmdlet to list, create, or delete tasks which is extremely useful given all the additional functionality the task scheduler has in Windows 2008 and Windows 7.
Here is a list of the other cmdlets and the link to go download them.
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/PowerShellPack
WPK
Create rich user interfaces quick and easily from Windows PowerShell. Think HTA, but easy. Over 600 scripts to help you build quick user interfaces
TaskScheduler
List scheduled tasks, create or delete tasks
FileSystem
Monitor files and folders, check for duplicate files, and check disk space
IsePack
Supercharge your scripting in the Integrated Scripting Environment with over 35 shortcuts
DotNet
Explore loaded types, find commands that can work with a type, and explore how you can use PowerShell, DotNet and COM together
PSImageTools
Convert, rotate, scale, and crop images and get image metadata
PSRSS
Harness the FeedStore from PowerShell
PSSystemTools
Get Operating System or Hardware Information
PSUserTools
Get the users on a system, check for elevation, and start-processaadministrator
PSCodeGen
Generates PowerShell scripts, C# code, and P/Invoke
For more information contact us at www.webactivedirectory.com, or call us at (+1) 800-747-3565
Using Powershell to create an Active Directory user account? Maybe you need to check to see if the samaccountname already exists? Perfect then, here’s your powershell script to check it.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/ab137ae7-e674-407e-87d3-8f76d4cfccb0
