Kevin Oppihle's Tech Notes

If you are building a new domain best practices dictate that you should be using an internal domain that is in line with your external domain for example. “Office.Domain.com” with your external domain being “domain.com” However, by default Server 2012 R2 Essentials will not allow you to use a top level domain. It will try to set your domain to “.local”for example “Domain.local” if you use the wizard which will be a problem in the future as your domain and network grows. To resolve this install Server 2012R2 Essentials, but do not run the “Configure Windows Server Essentials” instead close it. Set your static IP on your network card, change the computer name to what you want it to be and restart. After restart logon and close the “Configure Windows Server Essentials” then open up Powershell as an Administrator: You will now create the new domain administrator account using the following command: PS C:\> $cred = Get-Credential –UserName LocalAdmin –Message “Authenticate please” N...

Download Exchange 2016 installation files. You can download the media here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49161 Before we begin I would recommend: · Make sure you have a good backup of your AD and Server (test it) · Restart your AD server to complete any pending updates, installers, … · Run MS AD Replication Status Tool to make sure AD is ready Extract the installer to C:\TempExch16 Open up a Command Prompts as an Administrator and cd to C:\TempExch16 Type setup /ps /IacceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms You will see Unattended Setup is running Files copied Organization Checks Completed and AD Schema extended: Open up Active Directory Users and Computers, Select “View”, Select “Advanced Features” as shown below: Now when you edit the properties of a user you can edit added Exchange Attributes from the “Attributes Editor” without ADSIedit as shown below: The same is also true for distribution and other groups:

Download Exchange 2010 installation files. You can download the trial here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21570 Before we begin I would recommend: · Make sure you have a good backup of your AD and Server (test it) · Restart your AD server to complete any pending updates, installers, … · Run MS AD Replication Status Tool to make sure AD is ready Extract the installer to C:\TempExch as shown below Open up a Command Prompts as an Administrator and cd to C:\TempExch Type setup /PrepareSchema or setup /ps You will see a cancel Prompt for Unattended Setup (let it count down) Files copied Organization Checks Completed and AD Schema extended: Open up Active Directory Users and Computers, Select “View”, Select “Advanced Features” as shown below: Now when you edit the properties of a user you can edit added Exchange Attributes from the “Attributes Editor” without ADSIedit as shown below: The same is also true for distribution groups: Cred...

To test your AD replication in your environment I recommend the following MS tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30005 Once downloaded and installed, typically but not required to be one of your Domain Controllers, you will have the following icon on your desktop: When you open the Tool, by default, it will pull in your local domain information. For a quick check simply click on “ Refresh Replication Status ” in the top left corner as shown below: It will then open up the Replication Status Viewer as shown in the example below: As you can see in my example above there is a replication error By looking up the 8524 error on the “Last Sync Result” and reviewing the “Last Sync Message” field I can then research and resolve my replication issues.