Upgrading your Domain controllers to Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2

So you have been running on Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 AD environment for quite some time and prefer a change. Windows 2008 has been out there for almost 16 months now, including the release of Windows 2008 R2. In this article we’ll discuss some of the key facts you need to consider before you jump into upgrade process and some of the pit falls you need to avoid.

What are the upgrade options available for me?

In-Place upgrade – In this method you can upgrade your existing server to Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2. But the key thing is you can't in-place upgrade your windows 2000. You need to upgrade that to Windows 2003. (Do you really need to install windows 2008 on that old hardware :) There are few caveats you need to take into consideration before going this path,

• The Windows Server 2003 patch level should be at least Service Pack 1
• You can't upgrade across architectures (x86, x64 & Itanium)
• Standard Edition can be upgraded to both Standard and Enterprise Edition
• Enterprise Edition van be upgraded to Enterprise Edition only
• Datacenter Edition van be upgraded to Datacenter Edition only

Apart from that consider your Domain and Forest functional level as well. In windows 2008 R2 you’ll have some cool roles and features but to get that you need to upgrade the functional levels to R2. Consider the following facts.

Transitioning - Migrating this method means you’ll be adding Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers to your existing Active Directory environment. After that migrate the FSMO roles to the new server and safely demote the existing windows 2003 domain controllers. You’ll have to purchase new hardware for this. In case if you’re planning to use your existing hardware then temporary you’ll have to bring a new server with windows 2008 to get the roles transferred. Few things to remember at that time is,

• Global Catalog availability
• Enable your new 2008 DCs as DNS servers (if using Microsoft DNS)
• PDC Emulator sync with external time source
• Ensure the demotion of your existing DCs is fully replicated to all your other DCs before promoting the replacement (if re-using the same name and IP address).
• Changes to your backup and recovery procedures
• Anti-virus software compatibility with 2008
  Monitoring software compability with 2008
• Any other services/applications running on your existing DCs (e.g. CA, WINS, DHCP, File and Print).
• Applications and systems that may be impacted during the outage of your DCs during the demotion/promotion (i.e. those that may be hard-coded to the name or IP address).

Transitioning is possible for Active Directory environments which domain functional level is at least Windows 2000 Native. In a way this is my favorite method considering the risky method of in-place upgrade.

Restructuring – In this method you’re going to create a total different domain and transfer the existing domain details (Eg: user accounts, passwords, profiles…etc) to the new domain. One good example is when a company having two or three domains and they wanted to merge to a one domain name. Microsoft ADMT is one of the useful tool in this scenario(Active Directory Migration Tool) Apart from that there are third party tools available to this kind of transition.

when it comes to upgrade your domain environment careful planning is vital in the beginning to avoid unnecessary problems which can be lead to un-reversible. So take good time to read the documentation and do the lab environment tests. Here is a one good article which can give you some useful information.

PM me if you need any assistance on migrating your company domain environment to windows 2008

Better together with Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7

Few weeks back I had the privilege to conduct a session on Windows 2008 R2 and it’s new features. This session has been combined with Windows 7 and it’s new features. Windows 7 session has been conducted by Sabeshan. He is one of the Microsoft Certified Trainer in NetAssist.

We have conducted this session to audience who comes from filed engineer to IT manger level. So instead being too techie of the product features we highlighted the technology and how they can implement and get quick ROI from their network. When it comes to new technology some companies are slow adaptors and especially with few Enterprise companies. With Business perspective side there are few reasons for that. We wanted to break that barrier and demonstrate how effectively they can use the technology and get their expectations with less complex setup. Though we didn’t went on deep technical level on that day our future sessions will be deep dive into each product feature with live demonstrations.

We kept on demonstrating Windows 7 bit locker features, VHD boot up, Windows 2008 Active Directory Administrative Center, Recycle bin, PowerShell, Group Policy new feature usage….etc. Direct access could have been preferred one but with limited time frame I had to keep that away for a later time.

Well there will be no fun without some introduction on Microsoft licensing :) So we introduce one of Sri Lanka’s distributor as well to do some introduction. So keep in touch guys for more updates on future sessions. Some of the contents has been uploaded to the NetAssist training institute web site which can be reached from following links,

http://netassist.com.lk/windows7.html

Windows 2008 Storage server setup

I have been keeping the Windows 2008 Storage server downloaded iso in my machine for few weeks time and didn't get much time to test it out. Well if you're guessing how I get it I have download it from TechNet subscription, Yes it is available over there :)

Finally I wanted to test the Windows 2008 R2 new cluster features. When it comes to shared storage 2 products are in my mind, one is Windows 2008 Storage server and the other one is StarWind iSCSI software. Since I have already got the MS product I wanted to give it a try.

I carried out the Storage server setup in my HYPER-V rig. Well nothing much talk about the setup since it is similar to the Windows 2008 setup :) Once the setup completed I ran into a problem of guessing a password to log into the system. Can you believe it Microsoft Storage team wanted to have some fun with us!!!

Thanks to some search around I managed to find the password. It is "wSS2008!" So surprise I didn't find that information in the Storage server team's blog
anyway I do hope this article will help someone who is pulling their hair to find out the Storage server default password.

Random updates on HYPER-V faq

While we are helping the customers to upgrade or consider for moving to HYPER-V  there are questions fire up in various ways. One thing I notice is most of them have already heard about the virtualization but laying back due to the lack of information been passed to them about the Virtualization products or maybe they have questions not been answered yet. With this blog article I’m expecting to share some of the questions I have been face and also come common ones I have seen in the forums. I’ll give priority to HYPER-V on this article :) Now as a general understanding I didn’t add the questions like what are the advantages on moving to virtualization since it’ll be well covered by particular vendors :) apart from that do a search at Bing or Google.

1. Is my existing servers capable of running HYPER-V? For this questions we need to check the processor compatibility. To check each respective processor manufactures processor compatibility they have their own tools,
AMD , Intel, Other software

2. What is the most effective way to run HYPER-V? Running HYPER-V on top of server core is the recommended method. In this way you make sure maximum hardware resources are available for the Virtual PC’s. Step by step info available here

3. How can I backup HYPER-V VPC’s using the native windows backup? You can integrate the Windows backup program to backup the virtual PC’s.To do so you need to register the Hyper-V VSS Writer with Windows Server Backup. Click here 

4. How can I move my production servers to virtual environment without reconfiguring or loosing data? You can use Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine (SCVMM) to convert existing physical systems to virtual environment. This conversion can be carried out in two methods, Live conversion and offline conversion. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages plus when to use which option. More about P2V using SCVMM can be found over here.

Those are the questions I can think top of my mind apart from deep level technical questions which I didn’t insert over here. Feel free to drop a note and request more information.

Windows 2008 R2 upgrade paths

In my public session on “Windows 2008 R2” I have been raised with questions about the upgrade path options and how to do the upgrade. Some of the questions related to the upgrade from Windows 2003 domains rest are from Windows 2008 to 2008 R2.

Microsoft has been always trying to focus and listen to customer / partner comments and requests for their product improvement. With R2 they have included a feature called as “Windows server migration tools” This will allow you to carry our the process of transferring services (AD, DNS, DHCP..etc) from your previous Windows operating system to the new Server environment.

So how to do those task using the given tools will be a total separate topic and a separate blog article :)

What operating systems are supported and unsupported in the migration path has been updated on the TechNet.

Windows 2008 Server Core Configurator 2.0

If you’re managing Windows 2008 CORE operating system you know the pain of typing long commands in the console :) (Well we can use RSAY of course but not for everything) I’ve been using Core configuration tool to make life easier since most of the common commands can be managed UI within the core itself. Recently Core configurator version 2.0 has been released. Core configurator 2.0 only works with R2! so if you want to manage the previous versions of Windows 2008 core edition better keep the old version in handy as well.

Core configurator version 2.0 under open source so you have the complete rights to modify it as well :)

Some of the tasks you can do with core configurator are,,

Product Licensing

Networking Features

DCPromo Tool

ISCSI Settings

Server Roles and Features

User and Group Permissions

Share Creation and Deletion

Dynamic Firewall settings

Display | Screensaver Settings

Add & Remove Drivers

Proxy settings

Windows Updates (Including WSUS)

Multipath I/O

Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails

JoinDomain and Computer rename

Add/remove programs

Services

WinRM

Complete logging of all commands executed

You can download it from here.

Sharing knowledge with bright minds

I’ve been very happy when I have been invited to do a session about Microsoft products for students at a University. This is one memorable occasion which I got the chance to work closely with few Sri Lankan MVP’s as well. This University is located in Kandy, too bad we forgot get some pictures of the surroundings.

So what is interesting is the eager students had to learn about the new technologies and especially about the Microsoft side. They have been well armed with Open source technology but had certain knowledge about the Microsoft products and how those products can be used effectively. In this event we had the chance to demonstrate several products and how to use them effectively on their lifestyle.

I also got to know University students has been selected to receive several Microsoft products free!! (Can’t name the products now until the announcement comes from the Microsoft itself :) ) But that indication has been given to the students at that time. Look forward for more events like this and to share the knowledge.

 

Booting HYPER-V Guest from an an iSCSI LUN

This is a another cool feature in virtualization I wanted to try out and see some significant advantages in production environment. In this scenario instead of assigning a virtual hard disk file a to a guest operating system we’re allowing it to access the raw disk in a SAN directly or it can be a raw disk internally in the system. (Sometimes this is referred as LUN passthrough) To do this first in the iSCSI storage you need to create a LUN and assign some disk space. Then in the HYPER-V host computer under the disk management you will be able to see the disk. But the important thing is not to let host PC to initialize the disk and keeping it offline. If the host machine take over the control of the disk then we won’t be able to allow guest PC to directly take control and write into that disk thus guest PC will be fail to start. Once LUN setup properly it’ll be looks like the way it shows in the picture,

After that you can go to HYPER-V management console and start creating a new disk. When it comes to assigning a VHD skip the process and create the Virtual machine configuration file. After that got to the settings on configuration file go to disk controller and select add disk. Instead of creating or adding existing VHD files select the Physical hard disk and select the correct disk number. In my demonstration scenario it will be Disk 2. Below picture demonstrate how we can mount the pass though disk.

So after that you’ll be able to start the VPC and carry on the preferred Operating System installation. One main advantage is disk will give you improved disk I/O performance since VPC directly accessing the raw disk in the SAN environment. If you’re planning to host disk I/O intensive application in virtualized environment (Eg: SQL database, Exchange, SAP…etc) this would be a good option to consider.

Well another advantage that strikes to my mind is this will prevent the waste of usable disk capacity. Take a scenario like this, when you create a 100 GB disk portion in a raw disk and format it with NTFS you will get around 95GB or less due to the file system. Inside that when you try to create a fix hard disk it will also consume some disk space. But allowing the guest OS to take the direct control over the raw disk that disk space wastage will be minimize. So why I’m concern about this to put over here is I actually experience this barrier in hard way and lean the lesson :)

Some disadvantages are you won’t be able to take snapshotting, won’t be able to create dynamic expanding disks of the guest operating system. The main reason being is host VSS won’t be able to capture the raw disk. You’ll have to consider using DPM or third party backup solution  backup and recover the VPC. Of course that would be a another topic to discuss which will come very soon :)

How to extend trial period of Windows 2008, Windows Vista and Windows 7 products

 

Most of the time I use Windows 2008 products for video recordings and customer site demonstrations. During this period I use TechNet subscription materials for this purpose. Once issue I have been facing is when I want to do another demo after few weeks time the VPC cannot be used do the trial period of the product has been expired! Registering the demonstration purpose operating systems frequently is not an easy option either (Even though I create a set of VPC like that once)

With Windows 2008 you’re getting trial period of 30 days. But if you’re smart enough now there is  way to extend that period for 180 or more. This is really valuable because that means we can keep the vpc’s running properly under trail period for nearly 6 months! (For me that is more than enough!) Good news is this trial extend work around is working for Vista and Windows 7 as well. ok so let’s get start how to extend the trial period.

What we have to do is run a script in the windows\system32 folder called slmgr.vbs. 

1. Bring up a Command Prompt.
2. Type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and press ENTER.
3. Restart the computer.

You computer has now extended the evaluation period 60 days!  You can run the same command in the same system for 3 times up giving you an activation-free trial period of a total of 240 days!

To find out how many days remain in the trial period you can use the following command.

1. Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and the current status of the evaluation period is displayed.

Be curious and check out additional commands available in the slmgr.vbs

Group Policy Central Store (Windows 2008)

With the introduction of Windows 2008 Microsoft redefined the concept of Group Policy Central store. Group Policy central store is a simply a central storage place to keep the administrative templates. In windows 2003 and XP age we have received many Administrative templates from Microsoft and other vendors, but the key question is where to store them. If we keep them in one server then the other server won’t be able to retrieve them.
With windows 2008 Microsoft introduce the concept on central storage. Now you can keep all the administrative templates in a central place and replicate between windows 2008 domain controllers. Windows 2008 and Vista natively support this but Windows 2003 and Windows XP don’t support it out of the box.
How works is is simply by checking if the templates available in a central place or not. If the machine couldn’t find templates in a central place it will load the template from machine local template section. So as you can see the functionality is very simple but still brings great flexibility 
So how to configure this? In the windows 2008 domain controller go to %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL\domain\Policies Create a folder called “Policydefinitions”. Leave it as it is and then move to c:\windows\PolicyDefinitions and copy the contents in that folder and paste them to %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL\domain\Policies

Once contents copied to the relevant folder go to GPMC and try to open a GPO. Upon opening expand Administrative Template. When you click that in the right hand pane you’ll be able to see “Administrative Templates: Policy Definitions (ADMX files) retrieved from central stores.


As a practice whenever you modify the GPO’s keep an eye of the locations where the GPO’s administrative getting loaded from. As you can see, keeping group policy templates in a central location can be a significant administrative issue for companies. However, Windows Server 2008 ability to create a central store for Administrative Templates have simplified the process and monitoring of the templates.

Something intresting in Windows 7 and windows 2008 R2

Tried to setup HYPER-V role in my desktop PC after installing Windows 2008 R2 (It's a new rig :) )
Tried to install windows 2008 R2 Ent and Windows 7 as guest OS in my HYPER-V environment. After installing went on usual method of installing the IC's (integration services), but no need to do that anymore. According to the given message ic's has been installed already.

Wondering if this installed automatically during the setup I went to the control panel and found no evidence for that. So looks like Microsoft has integrated the ic's into the OS itself!

Looks like MS expecting big change in future on visualization an they have been ready for it with the launch of Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

Windows 7 and upgrade options

Hope TechNet subscription people already enjoying the Windows 7 RTM (Build 7600) As a matter of fact I also rush into the new RTM version and choose Windows 7 Ultimate version :) One good thing I found is Windows Easy Transfer (aka Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP) working smoothly as is. I had 20 GB data in my user profile and after the fresh installation of Windows 7 Easy Transfer managed to restore the data properly and even give nice indication what application I am missing and what application I’ve already configured. Pretty nifty I would say.

BTW due to lack of VGA card driver and trying to run several Graphic intensive applications first time I experience the Windows 7 BSOD woooot!!!! Now it's over with the latest NVIDIA VGA card driver installation.

Apart from that I found out this OS is stable and managed to handle whatever the apps I throw for it.

Now lots of threads talk about the complicated methods of upgrading path offered by Microsoft. While you go through that you’ll initially get the same feel but considering the new enhancements in the OS it would be acceptable for us to have the clean installation rather than upgrading. Luckily for the cooperate customers upgrade will be easy with the given tools by Microsoft Desktop team. More will come on that in another article. So sit tight and enjoy the new OS.

Moving to MS Exchange from Lotus Domino

Hi everyone just wanted to share these information with you all since most of our customers are interested on the benefits on moving to Exchange from Domino mail environment to Exchange. Even though this will be a cost factor initially long term the ROI really going to help them to streamline the business productivity. We found most of our customers are having hard time maintaining Domino environment as well as support wise. Never the less my point is to provide some insight of the changing wave from Domino to Exchange happening is not only Asian countries but it's happening globally. Below you'll find a good article about the deciosn taken by major companies to move to new platform,

"In our last fiscal year (July 2008-June 2009), more than 4.7 million people began the switch to Exchange and SharePoint from Notes", Exchange marketing director Julia White posts on the Unified Communications blog.
Cost savings is the number one driver for migrations, according to the post. Another key driver for migrations is the launch of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. If you're considering the move to cloud-based services, Microsoft services offer plenty of choice for customers of all sizes. Julia notes that large Notes shops - including Coca-Cola Enterprises, GlaxoSmithKline, and Ingersoll Rand - are making the move from Notes to Exchange Online. Read more in Millions Switch To Exchange And SharePoint From Notes on the Unified Communications blog. (taken from http://msexchangeteam.com/)

http://blogs.technet.com/uc/archive/2009/07/23/notes.aspx

Microsoft has introduced the latest toolkit called freebusy connector to migrate Domino environment to Exchange. Recent toolkit even has the capability to migrate the Domino workflows to SharePoint as well. More information about the toolkit can be found here.

If anyone is interested on this you can PM me offline. I can provide more information since our company already carry out testing on this and found out the connector is working properly. What we are up to now is testing this on Exchange 2010environment :)

Windows 2008 Components Posters

Ever wonder it would be easy if you can know all the Windows 2008 features in one sheet so at a glance you can look at it and get the big picture. Well that wait is over for me since I found out Microsoft has a solution for this, giant poster!

Previously published in the TechNet Magazine, these are two PDFs of Windows 2008: Operating System components and Active Directory components. The posters explain how they work and detail capabilities. They are great resources to have up on your office wall.

The Feature Components poster highlights the following components of the Windows Server 2008 operating system:

Terminal Services
Network Access Protection
IIS 7.0
Server Manager
Server Backup
Server Core
BitLocker
Windows Server Virtualization

The Active Directory Poster highlights the following components of Active Directory in Win2008

AD Lightweight Directory Services
AD Federation Services
AD Rights Management Services
Group Policy
AD Management
AD Read-Only Domain Controllers

Many thanks go to MS team who has been taking considerable time to prepare these posters. You can get them by visiting over here.

Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

Widows 7 is in the horizon. Most of us enjoy the beta version and still using widnows RC :) So why don't you go the extra mile and try out the short cut keys as well. Below are some of the short cut kes I found out while browisng the web sites,

Win + UP Arrow Maximize the current window
Win + Down Arrow Restore down or minimize current windows
Win + Left Arrow Dock the current window to the left half of the screen
Win + Right Arrrow Dock the current window to the right half of the screen
Win + [number] Activate and run the program pinned on Windows 7 Taskbar, running program won’t be affected
Win + Home Minimize all but the current window
Win + Space Makes all windows transparent so you can see through to the desktop
Win + Pause/Break Open System Properties
Win + Tab Flip Aero 3D [press Tab to cycle between Windows]
Win + B Move focus to notification tray (the right-most portion of the taskbar)
Win + D Show/Hide desktop
Win + E Windows Explorer is launched
Win + F Search
Win + G Bring all gadgets on top and foreground
Win + L Lock Computer
Win + M Minimize all windows
Win + P Open the projection menu (generally used for laptops connected to projectors)
Win + R Run Command is launched.
Win + S OneNote Screen Clipping Tool
Win + T Show preview thumbnail of running applications in Windows Taskbar one by one without mouse over
Win + X Mobility Center
Win + # Quicklaunch
Win + = Magnifier
Win + [+/-] Enables the magnifier and zooms in/out
Win + Shift + Up Arrow Maximize vertical size
Win + Shift + Down Arrow Restore vertical size
Win + Shift + Left Arrow Jump to left monitor
Win + Shift + Right Arrow Jump to right monitor
Win + Shift + M Undo all window minimization
Win + Shift + T Cycles backwards
Win + Ctrl + F Opens the Active Directory Find Computers dialog
Ctrl + Right Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the next word
Ctrl + Left Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word
Ctrl + Up Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph
Ctrl + Down Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph
Ctrl + Click A pinned taskbar icon to cycle through the program’s open windows (e.g. IE)
Ctrl + Win + Tab Persistent flip 3D
Ctrl + Shift with an arrow key Select a block of text
Ctrl with any arrow key + Spacebar Select multiple individual items in a window or on the desktop
Ctrl + Shift + Esc Open Task Manager directly
Ctrl + Shift + N Create new folder

How to asses an existing infrastructure with Microsoft tools

Most of us visit customer sites to identify their existing infrastructure to help them better. In this process indentifying their network and finding troubles and doing recommendation will be vary according to each persons experience level and knowledge on product.

We use various tools for that and some will rely on third party tools as well. So depend on the information they gather the solutions you provide for the customer will be vary.

As Microsoft point of view they always want to empower the partners and as well as the customers and let them use the Microsoft software efficiently. So this thread is all about one of the Microsoft key success tool known as MAP (Microsoft Assessment and Planning) sometimes this will be referred as MAPS as well.

The whole idea behind MAP is to give the partners and customers is to do basement of their existing network / infrastructure and identify the hardware software and decide if they are ready for the new software /technologies. This will give you a clear picture and help you to make correct decisions. Based on my experience this will be a key tool any filed engineer should have in his belt of tools to better serve the customer.

Think about a scenario when you go and recommend Microsoft products do you really know their environment before you do that suggestions? Do you really know their business process? Now days it’s all about how you try to map your solution with their business process. So this tool will empower you with that information and give the clear visibility of their existing infrastructure. Armed with that information and your experience the solution you offer for the customer will be effective one.

More information will be provided by Microsoft if you visit over here.

Active Directory monitoring and health checkup

As system administrators most of us spend time on end user problem troubleshooting and forget to oversee the Active Directory services. We only concern about the AD server when we’re getting problems and then we see all sort of problems related to DNS, replications…etc. This guide is focus on providing proactive monitoring of the Active Directory so as system administrators you will have better understanding of your infrastructure.

Is it best recommended to do the following test once a month and keep the log files for trend analysis as well. To make thing easier I’ve provided the necessary urls of individual commands pointing to the TechNet so you can get more compressive details,

Dcdiag.exe /v >> c:\temp\pre_dcdiag.txt
This is a must and will always tell you if there is trouble with your DCs and/or services associated with it

Netdiag.exe /v >> c:\temp\pre_Netdiag.txt

This will let us know if there are issues with the networking components on the DC. This along with the post test also is a quick easy way to ensure the patches installed is really installed (just check the top of the log)


Repadmin /showreps >> c:\temp\pre_rep_partners.txt

This shows all the replication and if it was successful or not. Just be aware that Global Catalogs will have more info here than a normal domain controller.

repadmin /replsum /errorsonly >> c:\temp\pre_repadmin_err.txt

This is the one that always takes forever but will let you know who you are having issues replicating with.

Apart from that Microsoft offers another tool called MPSRPT_DirSvc.exe. You can run this tool in the dc’s and it’ll run most of the above mention commands and provide you the output into log files. Very handy I would say. You can download it from here.

Hopefully this helps you when you troubleshoot your domain controllers but by no way is this all encompassing list of things to do. These are the standard steps normally I take but I would love to hear what you all do as well.

Another server OS into the SBS market by Microsoft

Microsoft release another server OS aim for SBS market name as “Windows server 2008 Foundation” Microsoft main aim is to promote this as the first server for a small network. Users who are unable to invest on SBS server and doesn’t have requirement for in-house exchange server will be benefit of this product. Currently Microsoft don’t have any plans for selling this as a box products instead coming through Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) only.

Feature comparison can be found over here.

‘Fix it” New approach to fix computer problems by Microsoft

Recently I notice a new icon appears in the Microsoft Support documentation. So what is interesting behind this fix it icon. Well let’s say that you know the problem what customer is facing and you’re pretty sure you can fix it in no time. Let’s say in order to fix that particular problem you have to do few mouse click and do some registry editing. Now doing this for one or 2 machine would be ok but for 30-40 computers or even more!!! well not a pleasant experience right ?

So what Microsoft has don’t is created a nifty script behind this icon and all you have to do is click it. I think this is very useful for most of the non technical as technical people. If Microsoft adopt this for their Support documentation frequently end users will definitely gonna enjoy that. You can find a sample link to one of those Microsoft support document here.

How to sysprep Windows 2008

I spend most of my time with virtual PC’s creating recreating for testing. one thing I hate is to create new virtual PC’s for testing. Instead of that I prefer to use a clean installed OS cloned. Now this has been working fine for me in Windows XP, Windows 2000/2003. I just do a cloning under VMware and then run the Newsid utility and then join to the domain. There you go easy as that. But now with windows 2008 Sysinternals haven’t given any tools ( I mean properly working newsid) So we have to rely on Syspep method.

In windows 2000/2003 time you will have to find these utilities in the media. Now with the new kid it’s already in the pocket. You just got to %WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep and then run the sysprep.exe
If you want to create a new SID, remember to CHECK the “Generalize” checkbox - or else you have to go all over again…

That’s it. Happy cloning guys/gals.