Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Startup Issues (Part 2)

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This article discusses five more methods that you can use to diagnose and repair service startup issues.

Introduction

In my first article in this series I talked about some really basic techniques for troubleshooting problems with services that refuse to start. In this article, I want to conclude the series by talking about five more things that you can do to get a stubborn service to start.

Check the Dependency Services

Sometimes a service may fail to start due to a problem with a dependency. Services can sometimes form a hierarchical architecture in which other services must be running in order for a service to start. Granted, not all services have dependencies associated with them, but dependency services are common enough that they certainly warrant a look if you are having trouble starting a service.

In the old days it was really tough to track down problems with dependency services, but most of the newer versions of Windows make it easy. To check service dependencies, open the Service Control Manager, right click on the service that you are having trouble starting, and select the Properties command from the resulting shortcut menu. When you do, Windows will display the service’s properties sheet.

Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Startup Issues (Part 1)

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This article discusses the basics of troubleshooting failed system services, including verifying an error message and tracking down information in the event logs.

Introduction

Troubleshooting a service failure can sometimes be a frustrating experience. Thankfully, there are some techniques that you can use to get to the cause of the problem and get your server up and running relatively quickly. In this article, I want to discuss various techniques that you can use to troubleshoot service failures.

Before I Begin

Before I get started, I just want to quickly mention that all of the screen shots presented in this article series are based on Windows Server 2008 R2. Even so, most of these techniques will work on other versions of Windows as well. The exact steps may not always match up perfectly from one operating system to another, but the basic concepts are relevant across the board.

How To Create Disk Images & Mount Them On A Virtual Drive Windows

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One of my acquaintances, who has just got his first personal computer, has a weird new hobby – buying and copying CDs and DVDs (music, applications, movies) to his laptop’s hard drive. His reason is that he wants to put his collection all in one place, and he has plenty of storage space to spare. But being a first time computer user, he used a bit of a strange way of doing it. He copied everything inside the discs and pasted them onto the hard drive.

The first time I met the concept of a disk image was in the late 90′s when I unsuccessfully tried to play a computer game without the CD. Back in those days, many software makers required that the installation/data CD’s were to be present in the tray before the application could run. If you used many applications and each one of them required several CD’s, repeatedly inserting and changing those CD’s could become very annoying. It would be much better if users transformed those CD’s into disk images and mount them using virtual drives.

How To Rip & Mount Multiple ISO Images Easily Windows

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I deal with lots of ISO images, for installing operating systems, service pack updates and programs. Some of my tools reside in ISO images as well. I used to burn all my disks and bring them where they had to go.

In case you’re one of the readers who don’t know what an ISO image is, it’s an archive file, a bit like ZIP or RAR, but it’s uncompressed. In order to open and read the ISO archive it needs to be mounted.

Now with ISODisk I can mount my ISO images from the network as a drive letter. I can share them out over the network with others or run them locally on a machine without having to burn the image.

Now with ISODisk I can mount my ISO images from the network as a drive letter. I can share them out over the network with others or run them locally on a machine without having to burn the image.

Four Reasons to Upgrade Your DNS Server to Windows Server 2008 R2

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Several new features included in the Windows Server 2008 R2 server and Windows 7 DNS client that increase the security and performance of your DNS infrastructure.

By: Deb Shinder

Introduction

DNS is the backbone of network communications. Without DNS you would be forced to memorize the IP addresses of all the clients and servers on your network. That might have been something you could have done in 1985, but it’s really not realistic as we enter into the second decade of the 21st century. And DNS is going to be even more important as we slowly transition from IPv4 to IPv6. While some talented administrators could realistically remember the dotted quad addresses for dozens or maybe even hundreds of servers, that just isn’t going to happen with IPv6; where the IP addresses are 128bit hexadecimal numbers. IPv6 is going to bring DNS back to the forefront of your awareness.

Using Advanced Group Policy Management to Protect your GPOs

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The new Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) tool from Microsoft.

Most companies today are utilizing Group Policy to control almost every aspect and area of their desktop environment. In some cases, Group Policy is also being utilized to control servers. With such a heavy reliance on Group Policy, every effort possible should be made to protect the Group Policy Objects that are performing these configurations. The new Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) tool from Microsoft can help with this and more. 

Proxy Servers Tutorial - About Proxy Servers

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Introduction to Proxy Servers

Some home networks, corporate intranets, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use proxy servers (also known as proxies). Proxy servers act as a "middleman" or broker between the two ends of a client/server network connection. Proxy servers work with Web browsers and servers, or other applications, by supporting underlying network protocols like HTTP.

Proxy Servers and Browsers

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Proxy servers work with specific networking protocols. Obviously HTTP will be the most critical one to configure for Web page access, but browsers also utilize these other protocols:

• S-HTTP (also called "Secure" or "Security" in the browser)
• FTP
• SOCKS
• Gopher
• WAIS


S-HTTP (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol) supports encrypted HTTP communications.

Proxy Servers and Microsoft Internet Explorer

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To take advantage of a proxy server's capabilities, Web browsers like Internet Explorer (IE) must be configured to explicitly use it. In many proxied environments, the client computers do not have direct Internet access, and browsers generally are not configured to use proxies "out of the box." Clients will be unable to access public Web sites in this scenario until proxy settings have been correctly made.

DNS Design Guidelines

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Split-Brain DNS

Executive Summary:Split-brain DNS is a Domain Name System (DNS) configuration method that enables proper name resolution of local resources from both inside and outside of your local network. Use split-brain DNS when your edge router or firewall is configured to drop packets when it sees one of its connected networks trying to send information to itself. You configure a new primary DNS zone with the New Zone Wizard to set up split-brain DNS.