Monday, September 24, 2007

Making the Last Logon attribute more useful



One of my favorite little tools for Active Directory management is the Additional Account Information (AcctInfo.DLL) that extends the Active Directory Users and Computers interface and allows you to see some useful information such as the last date the password was set, when the password expires, the user's SID, and the last logon date.



However, the Last Logon date (the lastLogonTimestamp attribute) is only found in Windows 2003 "prepped" domains and only replicates if the domain is at Windows 2003 functional level. Further, this attribute only replicates approximately once every 14 days. This was done to reduce replication traffic, but it makes the Last Logon date much less useful.

You can adjust the interval at which the Last Logon timestamp actually replicates, though. Using ADSIEdit, display the properties of your domain and locate the msDS-LogonTimeSyncInterval attribute. Set this value to 1 or 2 (for one or two days). The Last Logon time stamp will then be a bit more up-to-date.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Complete eBook available: The Shortcut Guide to Exchange Server 2007 Storage Systems


Realtimepublishers.com has published the complete version of an eBook that I worked on earlier in the year. The Shortcut Guide to Exchange Server 2007 Storage Systems. This starts with some basics about calculating the storage you need for Exchange organizations and works its way in to the basics of iSCSI SANs and how to size an iSCSI SAN appropriately for your organization. I did not use any particular vendor when covering the basics if iSCSI targets and configuration, so if your exact experience and terminology that you find in your environment will differ sometimes from the terms and concepts that I used in the book.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Quest virtual trade show

Quest Software is sponsoring a virtual trade show next week. There will be some good information and lots of give-aways. Take a look at this new virtual trade show technology; it is like attending a conference without the delayed flights and the surly x-ray homeland security people. I'm doing a short briefing on Exchange 2007 high availability options!

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Skype phishing


This one was pretty good. Almost had me worried I had something wrong with my computer because I had just updated Skype. The malware people get trickier and trickier.