Windows Questions

Netlogon service?

If the server is a Domain Controller, Stop and Restart the Net Logon service to

Register the Service (SRV) records in the DNS server.

The Netlogon service registers all the SRV records for that DC.

What is the content of System State backup?

1)     Registry

2)     Boot Files

3)     Active Directory

4)     Sysvol

5)     Com + Class Registry

6)     Certificate Server

Types of event viewer?

1)     System log

2)     Security log

3)     Application log

4)     DNS Server log

5)     File Replication log

6)     Directory Service log.

What is an AGUDLP?

It is a user and group strategy

A: Account

G: Group

U: Universal

DL: Domain Local

P: Permission

Where FRS logs stored in and what is the Database Engine Name?

C:\Windows\NTFRS\JET\Log, The engine is Jet database engine NTFRS.JDB.

How do you install recovery console?

C:\I386\Win32 /CMDCONS, assuming that your Win Server Installation is on

Drive   C:

What’s contained in administrative template conf.adm?

Microsoft NetMeeting policies

What are the different types of profile?

Local Profile: Stored on local machine where the user log on. User gets different Profile when he logs on to different machine.

Roaming Profile: Stored in shared folder of server. User gets same profile when he logs on to different machine. User can modify his profile.

Mandatory profile: Stored in shared folder of server. User get same profile when he

Logs on to different machine. User cannot modify his profile.

Difference between Roaming and Mandatory profile?

Roaming Profile: User can modify his profile

Mandatory Profile: User cannot modify his profile

Difference between Roaming and Local profile?

Local Profile	Roaming Profile
stored on local machine	stored on shared folder of server
user get different profile for different machine	user get same profile on different  machine
stored in C:\docs and settings	Stored on shared folder of a server
These profile are automatically	These profile is required to be
Created when a user logs on to a  Machine.	Configured as per requirement.

How to configure a user profile as mandatory?

To configure a profile as mandatory we need to configure a profile as roaming and then rename the ntuser.dat to ntuser.man from the shared folder.

What hidden shares exist on Windows Server 2003 installation?

Admin$, Drive$, IPC$, NETLOGON, print$ and SYSVOL

You need to automatically install an app, but MSI file is not available.

What do you do?

 .zap text file can be used to add applications using the Software Installer, rather than the Windows Installer.

How to convert the .exe to .Zap?

[Application]

Friendly Name=”ADOBE”

Setup Command= “\\System Name \Adobe\Adobe.exe”

[Exit]

What is a Kernel version for windows 2008, Vista?

NT 6.1

Windows 2008 server performance?.

Windows 2008 server monitoring tools

1) Performance Monitoring

2) Reliability Monitoring

3) Data collector set.

How do you trouble shoot startup problem with windows xp?

Modify the Boot.ini file to include the /SOS switch. When trying to troubleshoot startup problems with windows XP in particular when the system hangs at reboot as in this scenario, we should use the “/SOS switch in the Boot.ini startup file. This switch causes the names of drivers to be displayed as the load during boot.

What should you use Answer file when you are going to install windows XP unattended installation?

The file name must be in Winnt.sif.

It should be locate on i386 folder.

Simple Shortcut Notes

%UserProfile%

%SystemRoot%

How to check the memory dump error log file?

ü  Microsoft kernel debugger (KD.EXE) it’s a CUI too.

ü  Microsoft WinDBG debugger (Windbg.exe) it’s a GUI tool.

What is debug mode?

It will check the driver files and versions and status. Once it is checked it will give the details to c:\windows\ntbootlog.txt files.

Remote Administration Upgrades:

Remote Control /admin always seemed like something that really needed to be “in the box” integrated into OS.

Standard Operating System (NT, 2000, 2003 or 2008) local user’s password database?

C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\(SAM)..

SAM (Security Accounts Manager)

Troubleshooting Boot Process:

USING THE ADVANCED OPTION MENU.

Windows advanced option menu.

ü  Safe mode

ü  Safe mode with networking

ü  Safe mode with command prompt

ü  Enable boot logging

ü  Enable VGA mode

ü  Last known good configuration (your most recent setting that worked)

ü  Directory service restore mode (domain controllers only)

ü  Debugging mode

The last known good configuration:

One purpose of the last known good configuration option is to save you from your better ideas. For example one time I thought I’d try installing the CD-BURNING software designed for a windows 98 computer on a windows 2000 professional computer. While installing, I saw an error warning me that the software was not designed for windows 2000, but I preserved (Rules? Ha| we spit at rules) everything went smoothly and I finished installing the tool. Feeling a little smug, I rebooted when prompted. And windows 2000 refused to start and instead displayed a blue screen. I stopped feeling smug.

Instead I rebooted again, pressed F8 to display the advanced options menu and chose to boot been logged into the computer. The computer unloaded the new drivers, I booted successfully, and life was good. So long as the change you made produced no system critical errors (at the time, that is as you can see, it’s okay if the change you made prevents the OS from starting up properly) and you successfully booted and logged into the server once before you ran into the problem all is not lost. You can load the last known good configuration and choose from three different system start-up options.

Using the current configuration

Using the last known good configuration loaded the last time the server successfully

Restarting the server

Understanding how last know good works

Every time you boot the computer and login, the configuration information for the local machine is stored in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet. The OS also stores a backup copy of this information and assigns it a number for organization purpose. This backup is used should the default set of configuration information the - current set - become corrupted and unusable.

Server 2003 stores several copies of the information numbering them consecutively. Another number set is maintained as a last known good configuration to be used if the default configuration set becomes unusable.

You can’t tell form the numbers which configuration set your server is currently using. To find this information, look in the \select key in HKLM\System. There are four values here.

Current

Default

Failed

And lastknowngood.

If you restart the machine and boot normally (that is, without using the advanced option menu), then Default control set will be used. The value of failed is the configuration set that had been the default when you chose to start the machine from the last known good configuration menu. Because you told the OS to not start with that configuration set. It’s now marked as failed even if nothing is actually wrong with it.

If you choose while booting time last known good configuration, you are choosing to reverse all non security related changes made to the registry during the last session. As I mentioned in my earlier example, this includes unloading drivers installed during the previous session.

The change that you want to reverse is not related to control set information. You

cannot remove changes to user profiles or system policies with last know good configuration menu, for example, password are also unaffected by the last known good option. So you can’t use this option to recover from a forgotten administrator password.

 Enable VGA Mode

Those familiar with NT Server will remember that in previous versions of the operating system, the boot menu had two entries for each instance of NT installed on the computer. One with whatever graphics settings you’d chosen and one designed to run in vanilla VGA mode.

There was a good reason for this, in NT 3.1, there was no VGA mode and if you set up the wrong driver and logged in (making the last known good option useless) then you had to go through a complicated sequence of keystrokes to navigate blindly to the display applet in the control panel and fix things. This gave you a terrific sense of accomplishment when it actually worked, but it made video problems more than a little painful to resolve.

The VGA option is no longer in the main menu however to get to it, you must press F8 at boot time and choose enable VGA mode from the advanced options menu, use this option if you’ve installed a bad video driver and need to correct the problem. Unlike the last known good menu, this option will work at any time, not just before you’ve successfully logged in.

Enable Boot Logging:

Enable boot logging from the advanced options menu starts windows as usual, except that it creates a file called NTBTLOG.TXT and stores it in the top of your system root directory.

If you’re running in to problem, then you can check this log to see what drivers did and did not load its normal for some drivers to not load. They are available, but if you have not got anything running that requires them, the OS won’t start them, so as to save memory, but if your network for example is not working you can scan the list of drivers to make sure that NDIS.SYS is present.

Note: at a time when the server is working normally, enable boot logging and save the output under another name, nothing the date and new changes to the server. If something does go wrong with the machine, you can compare the healthy boot record with the stick one to find the discrepancy.

Debugging mode

This final option in the advanced option menu, debugging mode sends debugging information to a computer connected to a windows 2000 computer you are booting via the serial port. The basic gist of this is that it’s a way to monitor the progress of a servers boot from another server.

Using memory dump files to analyze stop errors?

Memory dump files record detailed information about the state of your operating system when the stop error occurred you can analyze memory dump files manually by using debugging tools or by using automated processes provided by Microsoft. The information you obtain can help you understand more about the root cause of the problem.

ü  Microsoft kernel debugger (KD.EXE) it’s a CUI too.

ü  Microsoft WinDBG debugger (Windbg.exe) it’s a GUI tool.