Alexander’s Blog

The power management settings in Windows Vista can be centrally managed via Group Policy. However, natively the power management settings (monitor power management, system standby, and hibernate) in Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 cannot be centrally managed through Group Policies.

Energy Star offers a free tool to network administrators that you might want to check out. It’s called EZ GPO and doesn’t have any licensing fees. EZ GPO will allow you to centrally manage your Windows XP/2000 client workstations through Group Policy.

According to the Energy Star Web site, here’s how EZ GPO works.

• - Uses an automated installer
• - Contains one binary application that runs as a service and one that runs on login under each user’s account
• - Reads the desired power management settings that are set using GPOs in integer and string value format
• - Allows changes to power management settings using Microsoft’s core Application Programming Interface
• - Intelligently selects only capable computers when activating “system standby.” (Computers generally capable of using system standby reliably run Windows 2000 or XP with Pentium 4 chip sets capable of S3 standby mode.)

You can download EZ GPO here.

Also check out EZ GPO Installation Instructions and FAQs.

In case you are wondering about Energy Star. It is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. It’s purpose is to save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.

With every new version of Windows the number of Group Policy settings are increased. In Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Microsoft increased to the number of Group Policy settings to approximately 1,800. In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 the number has been increased to approximately 2,500. That’s a whopping increase of about 700 new policies that you can use to manage your company desktops, security, and some other aspects of your network.

Here are a couple of useful links related to Group Policy:

• Deploying Group Policy Using Windows Vista

• Group Policy Settings Reference Windows Server 2008 Beta 3

• Group Policy FAQs

• Windows Server Group Policy Home

Are you getting the following error on your Windows Server 2003? If so, your event viewer is probably displaying this error every 5 minutes.

Event ID: 1054
Source: Userenv
Type: Error
Description: Windows cannot obtain the domain controller name for your computer network. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted). Group Policy processing aborted.

Microsoft’s KB article 324174 addresses this issue. This behavior may occur if the address for the configured preferred DNS server on the client is invalid or unreachable. This error may also cause the client computer to take a long time to logon. To resolve this issue, correct the DNS address in the TCP/IP properties.

NOTE: If you are getting this error in Windows XP, then check out this KB article 298656.

As you may know, Microsoft doesn’t support Exchange Management Console for Exchange Server 2007 or the Exchange System Manager for Exchange 2003 on a Windows Vista-based computer as explained in the KB article 931903 “You cannot install the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange System Manager on a Windows Vista-based computer”. If you try to install the Exchange System Manager for Exchange Server 2003 on Vista, the installation fails and you get the error:

The “Internet Information Services Snap-In” component of the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is either not installed or disabled.

Microsoft suggests that as a workaround you use Remote Desktop to manage Exchange Server 2003 from Windows Vista. If for some reason the Remote Desktop option is not a viable solution for you and you are looking for another option, here’s a workaround that you might want to try.

1. Install adminpack.msi from Windows Server 2003 on Windows Vista so you will have the Active Directory Users and Computers console.
2. Copy the following files from Exchsrvr\Bin folder on your Exchange Server 2003 to Windows Vista’s System32 folder:
address.dll
escprint.dll
exchmem.dll
glblname.dll
maildsmx.dll
pttrace.dll
netui0.dll
netui1.dll
netui2.dll
3. Register the maildsmx.dll by typing the following command at the command prompt:
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\maildsmx.dll
4. Just be aware that the Move Mailbox feature may not work so you can use Remote Desktop for that.

You should now see the Exchange tab in your Active Directory Users and Computers on your Windows Vista computer.

If you subscribe to TechNet Magazine, you may have seen the Windows Server 2008 Component Posters in the July 2007 issue. If you don’t have a hard copy, you can download these posters from Microsoft. The following two posters are available as PDF files.

1. Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Components.pdf
2. Windows Server 2008 Feature Components.pdf

Click here to go to the download page.