Windows Server 2012!

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Tony

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since my last posts and I apologise for that. This post is just to let you know that I have not abandoned this site in any means. I have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and trying out a lot new stuff with the beta and preview versions of the coming Microsoft OS’s. The new Server 8 will officially be called Windows Server 2012, which I have mixed feelings about. Regardless, I Think that it will be a kick-ass Product once it releases and I aim to know Everything about it.

I have also been involved in a pretty awesome Citrix project in the last month’s even though I had hoped to get away from Citrix previously. However, this project kind of sparked a fire between me and Citrix again, which is nice :)

The project featured all the core Citrix products in a large production Environment with almost 10 000 users. XenServer, XenApp, XenDesktop, Provisioning Services and Profile Management. Pretty cool stuff!

This post is meant to let you know that I’m not gone by any means, I’ve just been busy!

Expect many more articles in the near future where I talk a lot about the new Server 2012 and maybe a few Citrix related articles as well. Cheers!

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Activate hidden OEM partition

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Tony

Hello again,

This time I’m just going to describe a quick fix for hidden oem partitions.

The scenario is that I have a netbook that had the hidden oem partition intact, since I chose to install Windows 7 on it the moment I got it out the packaging. I had later installed the Windows 8 developer preview on it and most recently I reinstalled the machine with the Windows 8 consumer preview.

However, now I will sell it second hand and wanted to reimage back to the factory XP installation and had som issues while trying to access the 8gb hidden OEM partition.

It did not matter how much I tried to click on F11, which is the Packard Bell default for resetting to the factory settings. So I had to go into Windows 8 and run diskpart.

Run diskpart from cmd.
select disk 0
list partitions
select partition 0 (the oem one in my case)
activate

Then exit from everything and reboot the machine. This got me into the hidden partition.

Hopefully this will help someone. I had always selected to keep the oem partition just in case this would be a scenario later on. If you have scrapped your oem partition, then you’ll need to contact PB for assistance.

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User Group Policy Loopback Processing

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Tony

Today we are going to assign user settings on servers, a question that I have received on more than a few occasions. How to enable user policies on computer objects.

The GPO-setting is one that is much debated on the net and elsewhere and has been for years. This is nothing new at all but I will try to explain what it actually does.

“User Group Policy Loopback processing” is the magic word that gives the possibility to assign user policy settings to computer objects. Well… sort of. It does not actually apply to computer objects… but it applies to all users that logon to a certain computer object. I am not a GPO-guru as much any more since I tried to get away from the traditional server admin role a few years back.

The setting was originally meant for “kiosk” type computers that need a far more stringent policy than other registered users might need.

This is very handy for us (you) admins that want our support personnel to have higher security on their accounts when logging on to key servers in your enterprise for example. Things like setting the screen saver to 1 min idle time and then locking the console.

Screen saver is a typical user setting that might not need to apply to their local PC but really should apply to all servers that they log on to. (This is again up for discussions outside the scope of this guide).

So, let’s get to it. Run gpmc.msc and create a new GPO. We’ll begin by activating the loopback mode that allows us to assign this policy to computer objects.

Computer Configuration \ Policies \ Administrative Templates \ System \ Group Policy \ User Group Policy loopback processing mode

I Chose to use Replace mode to overwrite any setting that might be there.

Then I set the ScreenSaver values under the User node of the GPO as usual.

Then you link your GPO to some OU that has computers and try it out.

As you can see, the policy has taken effect.

This might come very handy for Terminal Servers as well where yo might want to use the Internet Explorer hack to get higher user density out of your servers.

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SOPA and PIPA

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Tony

This site is not meant for preaching politics of any kind, but this seems too important to just skip.

Check this video out that explains some of details of what is going on in the states.

WTF is SOPA?

If you are in the states and can make a difference, please do. This could effectively affect the whole of the Internet if these bills pass the old geezers and farts in congress that don’t understand any of it.

I am born and living in Sweden and I’m concerned about this crap…

Posted in 2008 R2, Active Directory, Certificates, Citrix, Group Policy, Metal, Migration, Server 8, Uncategorized, Windows Clients, Windows Server, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer | Leave a comment