A major part of our transition at work from a Novell Netware backend to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 involved provisioning user accounts in Active Directory and fleshing out all the individual accounts with profile paths and home directories. Fortunately we didn’t have to create the accounts, as we had been running Novell Identity Manager for some time, populating AD with accounts from eDirectory, along with basic user information, but the existing home directory information was not going to be valid on the new backend filesystem (Server 2008 R2 DFS + highly-available file cluster) so we needed a way to bulk change the account information, create home directories for each user (approximately 1700 users) and assign permissions.
Time and budget didn’t allow us to bring in external parties or purchase third-party migration tools, so we made the decision to do the entire thing with PowerShell.
Continue reading Provision user home directories with PowerShell
Disgracefully, it’s been over two months since I last wrote anything for DTS.
Why? Well, the site-wide migration at work from Windows XP/Novell Netware to Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 has been going full swing since early December 2009, and has been far more intense and full-on than anybody anticipated, leaving next to no time for anything else.
Yes, yes….poor me, I had too much work to do 
However, it’s also been an amazing crash-course in the latest Microsoft technologies, which means that there’s plenty to write about and lots of content to discuss. 2010 is also shaping up to be quite a big year, so from here on in I have absolutely no excuse not to keep DTS updated with new thoughts and ideas. Having said that, if the rest of 2010 ends up being bigger than the start of year, I will need to seriously investigate cloning. Perhaps Apple can come up with some self-cloning technologies, simply called “i”? Or even “iI” – but then that’s a bit too similar to “aye-aye“, which is a member of the lemur family (I think) found in Madagascar. I like the idea of a shy and retiring groups of animals on a remote island banding together and submitting a class action against Apple for a branding violation…
But before then, I’ve gone through and given DTS a well-0verdue spring clean, specifically the blogroll (that sounds too much like “bogroll” – need to find a better title) and the podcast listing, so take a look and check out some of the rather excellent sources of information and entertainment which the good people of the internet make available for your enlightenment and delight.
Note – this is a cross-post from 4sysops
Well, as we move from theory to practise, our first batch of Windows 7 machines has been deployed and rolled out into the production environment, and so far so very, very good. Microsoft has done a very impressive job with its newest suite of client and server products, and our deployment is being managed end-to-end with no third-party products required.
I thought this would be an opportune time to document some of the problems I’ve encountered so far in the build of our Windows 7 Standard Operating Environment (SOE). Given that we are moving from a Windows XP/Novell Netware environment, there are a whole raft of changes happening as well as having to deal with problems which were lurking behind the scenes, and that’s what I’ll talk about today.
Continue reading Some Windows 7 migration pains
Details for the next TechNet Virtual Conference have been announced. The last (and first!) conference was a great event, so if you weren’t able to make it, sign up for the upcoming sessions.
The October conference will take place on Friday 30th October, and there’s a great line-up of sessions – here’s what’s on offer: Continue reading Sign up for the October TechNet Virtual Conference
