Insight for Active Directory v1.0

Introduction

ADInsight is an LDAP (Light-weight Directory Access Protocol) real-time monitoring tool aimed at troubleshooting Active Directory client applications. Use its detailed tracing of Active Directory client-server communications to solve Windows authentication, Exchange, DNS, and other problems.

ADInsight uses DLL injection techniques to intercept calls that applications make in the Wldap32.dll library, which is the standard library underlying Active Directory APIs such ldap and ADSI. Unlike network monitoring tools, ADInsight intercepts and interprets all client-side APIs, including those that do not result in transmission to a server. ADInsight monitors any process into which it can load it’s tracing DLL, which means that it does not require administrative permissions, however, if run with administrative rights, it will also monitor system processes, including windows services.

AD Insight works on Windows 2000 and higher.

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Related Items

The Sysinternals AdRestore utility enables you to restore deleted objects on Windows Server 2003 domains.

AD Explorer is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor.

Download AdInsight (720 KB)

Creating a Bootable WinPE 2.0 USB Key

Creating a Bootable WinPE 2.0 USB Key

Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE) 2.0 is a slimed down version of Windows (hence all the MiniNT references) that used to be the exclusive domain of OEM’s providers. Microsoft has wisely chosen to offer this to the masses as part of the Windows AIK. USB keys can be found just about anywhere these days for next to nothing. Combine the capabilities of WinPE with the portability of a USB key and you just made a very powerful troubleshooting, imaging, and data recovery tool. Here is a quick step by step on how to do just that:

Step 1. ) Get USB Key

You probably already have a few and if not you can purchase these just about anywhere, so I won’t tell you where to get one. You should get a USB 2.0 device of at least 512mb in size, but if you plan on putting a lot into a custom PE install or plan on using it to transfer data too then you are better served getting a larger size (2.0-4.0GB)

Step 2.) Download and Install the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK)

This deployment oriented tool set contains Windows PE 2.0.

Step 3.) Format the USB key

Note: This must be done from Windows Vista

Start a command prompt and run the following. This set of commands assumes your USB key is detected as disk 1, you should double check that by doing a list of the disks before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives you could end up wiping your second drive using this command. You have been warned.

• Diskpart
• select disk 1
• clean
• create partition primary
• select partition 1
• active
• format fs=fat32
• assign
• exit

Step 4.) Setup Windows PE

• In this step you will create and customize WinPE for your disk. From the machine that you installed the Windows AIK go to the start menu and select "Windows PE Tools Command Prompt" from under the Windows AIK program folder.
• Run Copype.cmd x86 c:’winpe_x86
  • you can create an 64-bit version by changing the architecture from x86 to amd64
• Add customizations to WinPE
  • copy any tools you want available to the C:’winpe_x86’iso folder such as imaging tools if you want to use this for capturing images (imagex, wimscript.ini)

Step 5 .) Copy Windows PE to USB Key

Insert the USB key into the machine that you have WinPE on and run the following command to copy the contents to the USB Key

xcopy c:’winpe_x86’iso’*.* /s /e /f e:’

change c: to reflect the drive your files on and e: to be your USB key.

There you have it…a quick way to make a handy USB version of WinPE that you can take with you anywhere. These can be used in almost any modern computer that supports USB booting. More information on this and other great things you can do with Windows PE are located in the Windows AIK.

Workaround discovered for clean install with Vista upgrade dvd

Microsoft internal documentation reveals workaround for Vista Upgrade DVDs with no need for a previous version of Windows

Per Microsoft’s new licensing requirements for Vista, users are required to install a Windows Vista Upgrade from with Windows Xp. When this occurs, the Windows XP license is forfeited and the Windows Vista installation process can take place.

Now, however, this workaround allows users to perform a “clean install.” The process is a bit tedious, but is not hard are all to complete. Users have to perform these simple steps to perform a clean install of Vista without a previous version of Windows installed with an upgrade DVD:

1. Boot from the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD and start the setup program.
   
2. When prompted to enter your product key, DO NOT enter it. Click “Next” and proceed with setup. This will install Windows Vista as a 30-day trial.
   
3. When prompted, select the edition of Vista which you have purchased and continue with setup.
   
4. Once setup has been completed and you have been brought to the desktop for the first time, run the install program from within Windows Vista.
   
5. This time, type in your product key when prompted.
   
6. When asked whether to perform an Upgrade or Custom (advanced) install, choose Custom (advanced) to perform a clean install of Vista. Yes, this means that you will have to install Vista for a second time.
   
7. Once setup has completed for the second time, you should be able to activate Windows Vista normally. You can also delete the Windows.old directory which contains information from the first Vista install.
   

Windows NT Backup – Restore Utility

This download is a utility that runs on Windows Vista and Windows Server Codename “Longhorn” to restore older backups, made using the “NT Backup” application on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. NT Backup has been replaced in Windows Vista or Windows Server Codename “Longhorn” with different applications, which are not compatible with the .bkf files that NT Backup created.

You can use this utility if you made a backup using an older version of Windows, and now want to restore files from that backup on to a computer running Windows Vista or Windows Server Codename “Longhorn”. The utility requires that you also enable the Removable Storage Manager feature.

Get it here.