Sbryan

Hi guys, i found a pretty cool tool from http://www.thedotnetfactory.com/WebManager.aspx for managing AD from a browser which looks pretty cool, but while the pricing sounds pretty high i need some basis for comparison. Can anyone please recommend similar tools? I have a requirement to open AD a bit for our Helpdesk guys as well as looking at the possibility of allowing each user the ability to update/edit their own contact information.. office location, telephone number etc.. just the basics that never really get entered (or provided).. Cheers, tia Shane

hi guys, sorted this out. running cliconfg from the command prompt showed a extra alias that was giving us grief.

Hi guys. Can anyone answer a question about a glitch that im experiencing on a windows 2003 server (sp1) when creating an ODBC connection on a server (called FPXB01), one of the SQL servers (called SQL01) appears twice in the drop down menu. i think this is creating grief as no matter which one i choose, im unable to make a connection, it always fails. creating an odbc to another sql server has no issues at all. creating an odbc to that SQL01 server, from another server is fine as well so i've narrowed it down to this FPXB01 server thats the cause of the problem. can anyone shed some light on the conflict that would be causing the SQL server to appear twice in the server select drop down menu?

anyone got any advice on this? that is, cleaning up Active Directory after RIS'ing a PC with an identical GUID?

yep i sure did, basically i followed the steps in the MS KB article for setting up the RIS server, then RIPrep'd the image from a PC up to it.

thanks Rogue Spear, i'll give those great tips a shot ASAP. that is excellent, thank you very much. i found an article that mentioned you could 'pre-stage' the pc you are RIS'ing by adding the computer to Active Directory first with the computers GUID and making it managed etc etc however, after RIS'ing that pc it still picked up the GUID from the image being deployed to it, and then when i checked that computers AD object it had updated with the incorrect one. this is frustrating because every RIS doco/article i found before attempting this, and even the official MS KB article mentions nothing about having to perform some sort of sysprep to strip unique system info from the pc you plan to create the RIS image from. at the end there's a small mention of the GUID but it doesn't really link to any other articles to explain itself in more detail. even if i change the GUID for the imaged PC in Active Directory to and then check the pc using the cmd "wmic csproduct get UUID" it still shows the incorrect one so AD doesn't seem to be able to update the computers SMBIOS with the info i'm telling it to. oh these are DELL pc's as well. there's nowhere to find the GUID before attempting to RIS the pc, but even then it only tells you the incorrect one that it's attempting to give to it, this is where it says "an identical GUID exists on the network" and it gives you the option of proceeding but cleaning it up in AD afterwards. this is what im trying to find out how to do, clean it up afterwards

hi guys, i've followed the steps as mentioned by Rogue Spear but having problems that i hope someone can help with. got the RIS server going, got the image up to it but in deployment getting the GUID/UUID issue. i tried Rogue Spears tip to create the computer object in AD first and assign it's GUID to it. however, in the RIS process it still applies the GUID from the PC that was used to create the original image and overwrites it. any tips appreciated. during the RIS process it says that its the same as another PC on the network but that it can be cleaned up in AD afterwards, what that process is though is proving elusive to track down. Cheers, thanks in advance Shane

We have our RIS server configured, and we've RIPrep'd an image up to it, but just having one problem when we deploy it. The only stage we're unfamiliar with is either pre-staging Active directory for the builds to avoid the identical GUID/UUID issue appearing on our network (which i understand is not something we want happening), or.. ignoring the RIS error message about identical GUID's and then cleaning them up in Active Directory afterwards (which RIS says you can do). I cannot locate any info at all on what the process for that would be and DELL are proving to be next to useless. Are there any kind souls here familiar with RIS and how to resolve this? tia Shane