Active Directory Replication Status Tool (ADREPLSTATUS)

Microsoft has released new version of Active Directory Replication Status Tool (ADREPLSTATUS) which analyzes the status of replication of all Domain Controllers in the Active Directory domain or forest.

It is the advanced version of repadmin . It displays output in a format which is similar to REPADMIN /SHOWREPL /*CSV imported into Excel with significant enhancements.

Specific capabilities for this tool include:

• Expose Active Directory replication errors occurring in a domain or forest. .

• Prioritize errors that need to be resolved in order to avoid the creation of lingering objects in Active Directory forests.

• Help administrators and support professionals resolve replication errors by linking to Active Directory replication troubleshooting content on Microsoft TechNet. .

• Allow replication data to be exported to source or destination domain administrators or support professionals for offline analysis.

System requirements

Supported operating systems:Undefined, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 8 Release Preview, Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition (32-Bit x86), Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 Standard, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows Vista Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Professional Edition

Windows Vista

Windows 7

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 R2

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 8 Release Preview

· ADREPLSTATUS does not install on server core installs of Windows.

· Windows 2000 not supported due to lack of support for .NET Framework 4.0 Domain membership requirements

Must be joined to the Active Directory domain or forest you intend to monitor

.NET Framework requirements:

.NET Framework 4.0

.NET Framework 3.5.1

The ADREPLSTATUS install routine will prompt for the installation of versions as required. It may be necessary to manually install if there is no internet access.

Required User Credentials:

Target forest/domain user account; you must start the application using elevated credentials, by using "Run as administrator".

Supported DC OS versions that can be monitored by ADREPLSTATUS:

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 R2

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012 Release Preview

Windows 2000 not tested and is therefore not supported.

Other Requirements:

ADREPLSTATUS will not work when the following security setting is enabled on the operating system:

            System cryptography: Use FIPS 140 compliant cryptographic algorithms, including encryption, hashing and signing algorithms

The tool can be downloaded from MS Site

Kindle Fire – Tablet from Amazon

I’ve been using Amazon’s tablet Kindle Fire from past few weeks and would like to share some information regarding the same. 

The Kindle Fire is a tablet computer version of Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader

Hardware

Most Kindle Fire devices employ a 1 GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 dual-core processor. The display is a 7 inches (180 mm) multi-touch color screen with a 600×1024 pixel resolution. Connectivity is through 802.11n Wi-Fi and USB 2.0 (Micro-B connector). The device includes 8 GB of internal storage — said to be enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. According to Amazon's list of technical details, the Kindle Fire's 4400 mAh battery sustains up to 8 hours of consecutive reading and up to 7.5 hours of video playback with wireless off..

Of the 8GB internal storage, approximately 6.5GB is available for content.

Software

The Kindle Fire runs a customized Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.Along with access to Amazon Appstore, the appstore service is only for US customers) the Fire includes a cloud-accelerated "split browser", Amazon Silk, using Amazon EC2 for off-device cloud computation; including webpage layout and rendering, and Google's SPDY protocol for faster webpage content transmission.The user's Amazon digital content is given free storage in Amazon Cloud's web-storage platform, 5GB Music storage in Amazon Cloud Drive, and a built-in email application allows webmail (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL Mail, etc.) to be merged into one inbox. The subscription-based Amazon Prime, which includes unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows, is available with a free trial period. The current version of the Kindle Fire OS as of May 3, 2012 is 6.3.1_user_4107720.

Content formats supported are Kindle Format 8 (KF8), Kindle Mobi (.azw), TXT, PDF, unrestricted MOBI, PRC natively, Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8.

Because of Amazon's USB driver implementation, the Kindle Fire suffers from slow USB transfer speeds. For example, transferring an 800MB video file may take more than three minutes.

Services

Storage, Amazon Cloud Player, Amazon Instant video, Amazon Silk, Amazon App Store, Amazon Kindle Store

Online

Amazon Prime, Amazon Cloud

Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell (pre-release)

Would it not be helpful if all scripts are at one place and you can navigate/browse them through single window?

Microsoft team is working on a tool called Script Explorer for Windows Powershell.

Go through below link for more details.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/03/14/check-out-microsoft-script-explorer-for-windows-powershell-pre-release.aspx

Exchange 2010 Free Online Training

Hi All,

 Here is an interesting site for Exchange Server 2010 Free Online Training. Concepts seem to be very useful.

 http://exchangeserverpro.com/training/

 What You Will Need

To do this training you will need your own computer or laptop to run the training lab environment, and an internet connection for accessing the lessons themselves. If you don’t have a computer with enough resources to run the training lab environment you can still join and watch the lessons if you wish to.

 What to Expect Inside

The Exchange 2010 Boot Camp is made up of four training modules, each containing several lessons. The lessons are presented in a combination of text, screen shots, and videos.

• Module 1 – Get started by creating your own Exchange 2010 training lab environment
• Module 2 – Walk through the configuration of each of the Exchange 2010 server roles
• Module 3 – Become familiar with managing recipients with the Exchange 2010 management tools
• Module 4 – Learn how to backup and restore an Exchange 2010 server

Hope this is helpful to all Exchange Admins.

Error message when you try to open or save an e-mail attachment in Outlook: "Cannot create file"

When you try to open or save an e-mail attachment, you may receive the following error message:

Cannot create file: file name. Right-click the folder you want to create the file in and click Properties on the shortcut menu to check your permissions for the folder.

This issue may occur when the Temporary Internet Files folder is stored on a server on which you do not have sufficient permissions.

Use Microsoft Fix It to resolve the issue or follow below steps

To resolve this issue, force Outlook to use a specific folder for temporary files. Modify the relevant Windows Registry key as follows:

Outlook 2000

If you are using Outlook 2000, follow these steps:

1.      Start Registry Editor.

2.      Locate and then click the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Security\OutlookSecureTempFolder

Note You may have to manually create this registry key if it does not already exist on the system.

If Outlook is installed on a terminal server, use the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\MICROSOFT\Office\9.0\Outlook\SECURITY\OutlookSecureTempFolder

3.      On the Edit menu, click Modify, and then add the following registry value:

Value data: Path and name of the folder that you want to use

4.      Exit Registry Editor.

Outlook 2003

If you are using Outlook 2003, follow these steps:

1.      Click My Computer, and then double-click drive C.

2.      On the File menu, click New, and then click Folder.

3.      Name the folder temp0.

4.      Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

5.      Locate and then click the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security\

6.      In the right pane, double-click OutlookSecureTempFolder.

7.      In the Value Data field, type C:\temp0\ and then click OK.

8.      Exit Registry Editor.

9.      Restart the computer.

Outlook 2010

If you are using Outlook 2010, follow these steps:

1.      Click My Computer, and then double-click drive C.

2.      On the File menu, click New, and then click Folder.

3.      Name the folder temp0.

4.      Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

5.      Locate and then click the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Security\

6.      In the right pane, double-click OutlookSecureTempFolder.

7.      In the Value Data field, type C:\temp0\ and then click OK.

8.      Exit Registry Editor.

9.      Restart the computer.

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305982

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 Support Ends April 8, 2014

Microsoft has announced that for very stable OS XP & Office 2003 support is going to end from April 8 2014.

Go through the official announcement by microsoft.

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 Support Ends April 8, 2014

So, it's time for all organizations to move their desktops to new OS and for application developers to relook at their code.

Breaking Administrator Password of Windows XP

As administrators we could have received multiple calls from laptop/home users saying that they have forgotten the Local Administrator Password and ask us to crack.

While there are many third party hacking /crack tools on net, below article helped me to do that without any of those.

Here is the article which explains in simple way to reset the password… Hope it would be useful to you sometimes in your operations…

http://www.unp.me/f140/break-administrator-password-of-windows-xp-23706/

Show The Current Date & Time In A Cell in Excel Sheet

At times you may want to include current date & time in a excel sheet. How do you do that automatically?

2 functions help us to do that

·         Today() – Inserts current date

This formula will only update when the worksheet is recalculated or when you reopen the workbook. That's usually not a problem since the date only changes once a day. Also, you may have to format the cell to give you your desired date format.

·         Now() – Inserts Current Date & Time

This formula gives you both the date and time in the same cell (i.e. 19-May-03 9:00pm), however, is less useful because the time in the cell won't change until your worksheet recalculates or when you reopen your workbook. If you just want the cell to display the time only, you'll have to change the number format by selecting Format, Cells, Number, Time, (select a desired time format), OK

PST Capture tool for Exchange 2010 from Microsoft

Go through below link for more details.


http://techibee.com/exchange-2010/pst-capture-tool-for-exchange-2010-from-microsoft/1348

Announcing the Exchange Client Network Bandwidth Calculator Beta

Microsoft announced Exchange Client Network Bandwidth Calculator Beta which helps IT Administrators to plan for their Network Bandwidth.

What does it do?

The brief was concise and simple for this calculator; able to predict the client network bandwidth requirements for a specific set of users. The calculator needed to deal with Outlook, OWA and Mobile Devices, both on-premises and for Office 365 scenarios.

The following clients are included in this Beta; further clients will be added over time.

• Outlook 2010
• Outlook 2007
• Outlook 2003
• OWA 2010
• OWA 2007
• Windows Mobile
• Windows Phone

For more details go through: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/02/10/announcing-the-exchange-client-network-bandwidth-calculator-beta.aspx