Nov
02

Slow Remote Desktop Performance in Windows 7 or Vista

Symptom:  When connecting to a server running Terminal Services using the Remote Desktop client in Windows 7 or Vista, the connection is slow and lags despite a fast network connection. Problem:  This is usually, but not always, caused by the way TCP “Auto-tuning” is handled in Windows 7/Vista. Solution:  As stated above there are several …

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Mar
13

Group Policy Not Applied To Remote VPN Users

Problem:  Users logging on to an Active Directory domain across a relatively slow VPN link will unreliably apply group policies.  This article deals with user policies specifically, not computer policies. Solution:  Although the ultimate solution to this problem would be to cure the root cause of the group policies not being applied, my reason for …

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Aug
18

Transferring FSMO Roles in Windows Server 2003 and 2008

Introduction This article will provide step-by-step instructions describing the process for transferring one or more FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation) roles from one server to another in Active Directory.  This is a necessary step during a server migration, reorganization of an existing domain or a handful of other situations in which the needs or level …

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Aug
09

How To: Time Sync Across Windows Network

**Note from the Author:  Although this may be helpful for older OS versions, the process below is no longer the correct method. There are many reasons that a network administrator may want to synchronize the clocks on all Windows computers across the Active Directory domain.  The following steps will demonstrate how to easily accomplish that …

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Apr
20

Terminal Server Does Not Accept Enough Client Connections

Recently I had a client whose organization was growing and needed a few more client access licenses for their Windows 2003 Terminal Server. (see this post for an interesting issue that was encountered.) Once the CALs were installed and activated, all was well until it became apparent that the server was refusing connections before it …

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Apr
12

Adding Sites to Internet Security Zones Using Group Policy

Sometimes it is useful to leverage the power of Group Policy in Active Directory to add sites to certain security zones in Internet Explorer.  This can save the network admin the trouble of managing the security zone lists for each computer (or user) separately.  In the following example, each user on the network needs to …

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Feb
25

“The License Server Activation Wizard encountered an internal error from the license server. Message Number: 0xc0110011”

Symptom: Your Terminal Services Licensing Server is no longer activated on or after February 26, 2010.  If you try to re-activate the server, you are greeted with the following message: “The License Server Activation Wizard encountered an internal error from the license server. Message Number: 0xc0110011” You may also see the following events in the …

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Feb
08

Group Policy: Applying Different User Policies to the Same User for Workstations and Terminal Server

Situation: An organization has users that log into workstations interactively and also log into a Terminal Server with the same user account, but stricter policies are desired for the Terminal Server session than for the users’ interactive session with their own computer.  Also, certain users (such as Administrators) should be exempt from these policies. ex: …

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Jan
20

Cannot Format Drive As exFAT

Symptom: When trying to format a newer, high capacity external hard drive or flash drive, the only option given is to format as exFAT.  When an attempt is made to format the volume as exFAT, the following message is returned:  “Windows was unable to complete the format.” Problem: Microsoft’s new filesystem, exFAT (a.k.a. FAT64), is …

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Jan
18

Outlook 2010 Will Not Open/Close When Using Folder Redirection/Offline Files

Symptoms: Outlook behaves erratically specifically when trying to open or close it. Double clicking it will launch an “OUTLOOK.EXE” process, but not load the GUI. The “OUTLOOK.EXE” process cannot be killed. The machine may hang on shutdown if you try to reboot while Outlook is still stuck. There may be sync conflicts in Sync Center …

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