Windows Server on When Software Attacks!

Configure Server 2016 ADFS and WAP with custom ports using Powershell

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A pull request for Chris Gardner’s WebApplicationProxyDSC is now inbound after a frustrating week of trying to automate the configuration of ADFS and WAP on a Server 2016 lab.

With Server 2016, the PowerShell commands to configure the ADFS and WAP servers include switches to specify a non-default port. I need to do this because the servers are behind a NetNat on a server hosting several labs, so port 443 is not available to me and I must use a different port.

Dealing with AD sync issues in an Azure hybrid deployment

Tue, 05 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been building demo environments for Tech.Days Online for the past few days. I had been blogging as I built, but then I hit problems and time pressure meant I had to pause my series on building the hybrid network. I will pick up the remainder of those posts in the near future but in the meantime, I want to give you all the heads up on one of my problems.

Generation 2 Virtual Machines on Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 plus other nice new features

Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

DDD North 2013 was a fantastic community conference but sadly I didn’t get chance to deliver my grok talk on Generation 2 virtual machines. A few people came up to me beforehand to say they were interested in the topic, and a few more spoke to me afterwards to ask if I would blog. I had planned to write a post anyway, but when you know it’s something people want to read you get a bit more of a push.

Building environments for Lab Manager: Why bare metal scripting fails

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In the world of DevOps it’s all about the scripts: I’ve seen some great work done by some clever people to create complex environments with multiple VMs all from scratch using PowerShell. That’s great, but unfortunately in the world of Lab Manager it just doesn’t work well at all.

Links from presentation on Server 2012 R2

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to all who attended the ReBuild and TechEd revisited event today. I promised that I would post the links from the final slide to this blog so you can all start evaluating Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2.

Editing Windows Server 2012 Group Policies for Direct Access with Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I finally got time to upgrade my Surface Pro to Windows 8.1 Enterprise. One of the things I most want to test is DirectAccess, as I live and die by this on my main laptop. However, despite the computer object for my machine being in the group that the DA group policies are applied to, no DA settings appeared.

More UK TechDays on System Center 2012 and Windows 8

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Our good friends in the UK TechDays team have announced another raft of events in their fantastic IT Camps series. I’m hoping to be there for at least on of them and if you’re at all interested in Windows 8 or System Center 2012 I cant recommend them highly enough.

Adding DHCP Option 119 (Domain Search List) to Windows Server 2008 R2

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve seen my recent blog post on making Android work in Hyper-V you will have seen my problems around DNS resolution when in the office. That turned out to be down to the DHCP options being handed back by our Server 2008 R2 box. Or rather, it was what wasn’t being handed back to the client that was the problem.

Server Core, Hyper-V and VLANs: An Odyssey

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A sensible plan
#

This is a torrid tale of frustration and annoyance, tempered by the fun of digging through system commands and registry entries to try and get things working.

Fixing SharePoint 2007 IIS WAMREG DCOM 10016 activation errors on Server 2008 R2

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody who works will SharePoint will grumble if you mention DCOM activation permissions. No matter how hard we try, how many patches we install (or how hard we try to ignore it), granting activation and launch permissions to the SharePoint service accounts is like plugging a dike with water-soluble filler.

Kerberos for SharePoint on Server 2008 with IIS 7

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: Spence posted a great comment pointing out some issues with this post. Richard then restored our Community Server DB to a point in time before the post, so it’s been wiped. Post again, Spence, please, as I didn’t get chance to copy the text of the comment, I’m afraid.

Configuring IIS Bindings to include host headers with https on Windows Server 2008 (for SharePoint)

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

NOTE: We use a wildcard SSL certificate which makes our life much easier when dealing with multiple hostnames. I have not tested this approach with multiple SSL certificates for specific sites.

Incoming Email with SharePoint on Windows Server 2008

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write this up for a while, simply because it’s not quite as straightforward as with Server 2005.

To configure incoming email on SharePoint when running on Server 2008 you’ll need to run through the following steps:

NewSID fails on Windows Server 2008 R2

Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The title says it all. I’m currently building a virtual lab to test DirectAccess and every time I run newsid on windows server 2008 R2 the system bluescreens irrevocably on reboot. I’ve now switched to using sysprep to change the SID. Here’s hoping the sysinternals guys update what is undoubtedly one of the most useful tools around!

Tech Ed EMEA IT: Day 3 - Server 2008 R2

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We were in early today, looking forward to a session on SharePoint with Bill Engolish. Sadly, that was cancelled so Andy and I sat in on the Server 2008 R2 overview session presented by Iain McDonald. That was very interesing, and we learned a bit more about BranchCache. It doesn’t look like it will replace WAN accelerators like Riverbved, because it doesn’t appear to function at their low level. However, it does a similar thing at the file level. The client requests a file from the remote server, which instead replies with hashes. The client PC the requests those hashes from the local cache, improving performance. The cache itself is built on request so does not need to be pre-populated (which is good). I think WAN accelerators have nothing to fear from this, but for smaller organisations or ones which aren’t able to put the accelerators in (perhaps their servers are hosted, for example) BranchCache looks like a very promising technology.

Community Launch Events

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A big thanks to everybody who came to the Server 2008 launch event last week. Andy and myself had a great time presenting to such an enthusiastic crowd. In the end we ran long because of the amount of dialogue around the new features of Server 2008 and I hope everyone went away having got something useful.

Analysing Active Directory

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I think I’ve mentioned before how I’ve been updating our IT infrastructure. Company growth has meant a need for expanded services. Add to that new versions of SharePoint and Exchange, mix in a need to run virtual servers for development and you have a need for more tin.

SharePoint 2007 on x64 - don't try to run 32-bit web apps!

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

We’re slowly migrating services onto our new servers here at Black Marble. This morning we had one of those moments where significant amounts of wall kicking and teeth gnashing ensue.