Winnipeg Experts

Q. Does Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) require Active Directory (AD)?

A. Yes. All versions of MOM require AD, even MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition. This doesn’t mean that every server that MOM monitors has to be in the same domain as MOM. Only the MOM management server requires membership to an AD domain, and if managed servers are in the same AD forest, mutual authentication can be used. However, you can disable this extra security to allow management of computers outside the local forest.

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Q. Does Windows Vista BitLocker Drive Encryption have a security vulnerability?

A. Essentially, the BitLocker encryption that is part of Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions takes effect only if the machine is actually shut down (i.e., powered off, including shut down or hibernated). If a machine is placed in sleep mode, then upon waking, BitLocker checking isn’t performed (e.g., no USB key is required for disk access). To elevate this security, administrators are advised to set machines to hibernate after a short period of time when in sleep mode.
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Q. How do I enable the Aero Glass UI?

A. If you upgrade your video hardware and have previously been running Windows Vista Basic, your system will not automatically switch to Aero.
To enable the new UI, perform these steps:
1. Right-click the desktop and select Properties (or select Personalize from the Control Panel).
2. Click the “Windows Color and Appearance” link.
3. Under the Appearance tab, change the “Color scheme” to “Windows Aero,” as the figure at
http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=4E7F1:2B9950D71FEAA9A8C8563C6C38C8BCB2 shows.
4. Click OK.

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Q. How do I enable Windows Vista Basic if I’m currently using Windows Aero Glass?

A. If you need to reduce your graphics requirements or just want to run Vista Basic you can perform the following steps:
1. Right-click the desktop and select Properties (or select Personalize from the Control Panel)
2. Click the “Windows Color and Appearance” link
3. Click the “Open class appearance properties for more color options” link, as the figure at
http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=4E7EF:2B9950D71FEAA9A8C8563C6C38C8BCB2
shows.
4. Select “Windows Vista Basic” and click OK.

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Q. I’ve renamed servers using a special script but am now having problems accessing disks via the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk Management snap-in. What’s the problem?

A. A reader emailed me about a bug he discovered: When he renamed a server that has dynamic disks, upon reboot he could no longer access the disks via the Disk Management MMC snap-in. Instead of showing the disk content, the snap-in displays the disk icons with a red X and no name.

I tried to reproduce this behavior and was unable to do so. I dug further and discovered that the cause of the problem was the rename:
The name of the disk group in the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\dmio\BootInfo\Disk
Group registry subkey was the new server name (e.g., newnameDg0 instead of oldnameDg0, which didn’t match the configuration that’s stored at the end of the dynamic disk. To resolve the problem, I changed the name in the registry to the old server name, which allowed the Disk Management applet to function.

I learned that to rename the server, the user had used a script that searched and replaced server names in the registry rather than using the OS computer rename functionality, which is why the dynamic disk information on the disk wasn’t replaced.

The morale is therefore to not rename servers using registry search and replace. Instead, use the OS rename facilities. For example, you can use the netdom command or the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Rename function of the computer object, as the following code
illustrates:

strComputer = “.”
Set objWMIService = GetObject(”winmgmts:” _
& “{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” _
& strComputer & “\root\cimv2″)
Set colComputers = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
(”Select * from Win32_ComputerSystem”) For Each objComputer in colComputers
errReturn = ObjComputer.Rename(”NewName”)
WScript.Echo “Computer name is now ” & objComputer.Name Next