Manage Windows 7 workstations with SBS 2008
Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 2008) Group Policy can manage Windows XP and Windows Vista workstations. Although Windows 7 is supported, Windows 7 specific Group Policy entries are not present by default. They can be easily added from any Windows 7 machine:
- On any up to date Windows 7 workstation open folder:
C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions - Copy all files to following folder on SBS 2008 Server
C:\Windows\sysvol\sysvol\<domain-name>\Policies\PolicyDefinitions
If folder PolicyDefinitions doesn't exist - create it.
Remove old DHCP server from Windows Server domain
If you haven't decommissioned old DHCP servers properly they may appear in DHCP snap-in even after removing them from Active Directory.
You can normally remove such servers by running following command:
netsh dhcp delete server FQDN IP
e.g. netsh dhcp delete server svr-dc3.contoso.com 10.4.0.2
Free up space on system (C) drive
Even during times of terabyte(s) sized hard drives you can come across situations when C: drive if full and you have to free-up some space no matter what. Besides obvious solutions such as deleting large files from desktop and so on, you can try following:
Warning: Some of these tips are not for beginners and make sure you know what you are doing.
- Uninstall unnecessary programs
- Delete temporary files. This can be done:
- Manually
- Using built-in Windows Disk Cleanup utility
- Using third party software such as CCleaner
- Move Page File to another disk
- Disable Hibernating
- Disable System Restore and Previous Version
- Disable Shadow Copies (servers)
- Check size of Windows Search Index file at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb
Rebuild search index if it's too large: Control Panel > Indexing Options > Advanced > Rebuild - Delete server pack and updates uninstall folders. These are hidden system folders such as:
C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$
C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB2653956$ - Not recommended but you can temporarily move C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles to another location.
In this case you may want to update path values in registry in following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
Installing Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 on Server 2008 R2 - "You must use the Role Management Tool to install or configure Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1"
If you try to download and install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 R2 installation will fail with error: "You must use the Role Management Tool to install or configure Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1".
This is because .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 in included Server 2008 R2 and only needs to be enabled via Server Manager.
The above error message is somewhat misleading because it needs to be enabled in Features rather than Roles.
Open Server Manager (Right click on Computer and select Manage) > Features > Add Features expand .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features select .NET Framework 3.5.1 and click Install
- Cannot start SQL Server 2005 - Event ID 17190
- DHCP service keeps crashing with Event ID 1000
- Microsoft IIS 6 - create custom 404 Error Page
- Find out Exchange 2007 / 2010 Version, Service Pack and Update Rollup
- Microsoft Active Directory - Exchange Extension has encountered a problem and needs to close
- Users can’t logon on Terminal Server using mandatory profiles "The filename or extension is too long"
- Enable LDAP over SSL (LDAPS) on Windows Sever 2003 Domain Controller
- Add first Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller to Server 2003 domain.
- Windows 2003 Terminal Server - Prevent roaming profile changes from propagating to the server for certain users
- Windows cannot log you on because your profile cannot be loaded - Indexing Service (cidaemon.exe) locks files in roaming profiles.