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Taken from tek-tips.com to clear up DNS server misconception.
Quote:
 

Primary is local first then any other DNS server second

 
That is actually a very common misconfiguration in DNS servers. The first DNS server listed (aka, primary) should NOT be the server itself. The correct method is to list one or more DNS servers as the primary, secondary, and on the advanced tab, and then add the loopback IP address (127.0.0.1) as the last DNS server in the list. If you run the DNS Best Practice Analyzer it will confirm this.
 
The reason is pretty simple. If you set the DNS server to use itself for DNS lookups then it will never query another DNS server unless its own DNS service isn’t running. That means that it is entirely possible for it to become isolated from the other DNS servers in your environment if it doesn’t have the appropriate records to locate the replication partners, and you’ll never know that anything is wrong until you run into name resolution issues.
Microsoft: Windows Server 2008 – recommended dns settings for domain controllers running 2008 server.

Delete Failed DCs from Active Directory.

Here’s 8 steps to create a bootable WinPE CD:

1. start “Deployment Tools Command Prompt” as administrator
2. copype.cmd x86 c:winpe_x86
3. Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:c:winpe_x86winpe.wim /index:1 /MountDir:c:winpe_x86mount
4. Dism /image:<path_to_image> /Add-Driver /Driver:(Here I put the folder path to the folder with the .inf and .sys files) /recurse (the /recurse causes all the drivers in that folder to be added)
5. dism /unmount-wim /Mountdir:c:winpe_x86mount /commit
6. copy c:winpe_x86winpe.wim c:winpe_x86ISOsourcesboot.wim
7. oscdimg -n -bC:winpe_x86etfsboot.com C:winpe_x86ISO C:winpe_x86winpe_x86.iso (this creates a burnable .iso)
8. Burn the .iso to CD/DVD.

via Making a WinPE CD with HP SmartArray Raid Drivers « BasementJack.

It has been well discussed that aligning disk partitions is very critical to achieving maximum performance. It seems that the newer operating systems automatically create aligned disk partitions but I was curious to find out how to determine whether the current partition is aligned. After some googling, I found the following:

wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index

Running this will show the starting offset of each disk and partition.
Running DiskPart and listing the partitions will also show a rounded up value of the offset.
It seems that starting offsets of 1048576 (WMIC) or 1024kb (DISKPART) indicate correctly aligned partitions. The solution for incorrectly aligned partitions seems to be extensive disk tools or basically formatting and realigning the disk.

Courtesy of Q&A: Dos command to list all installed programs | TechRepublic.

Brian gives a nice overview of Microsoft Server 2008 licensing. I’ll post it here for quick reference because God knows I need it.
Thanks Brian.
Dealing with Windows Terminal Services licensing issues.

There are multiple license requirements for Windows Terminal Services (TS). These requirements vary depending on how TS is used and what version of Windows it is being used on (This article deals with Windows Server 2008).
Available license types
Five types of licenses are available for Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008:

License	Function
Windows Server License	Every Windows 2008 server requires a Windows Server License. This license allows TS to be used.
Windows Server Client Access License	Any computer connecting to a Windows server requires a Client Access License (CAL). Although the basic CAL does not cover TS use, it is still required for general connectivity to the Terminal Server.
TS Device CAL	In addition to the CAL, computers connecting to TS require an incremental CAL that is specific to Terminal Services. One option is to use a TS Device CAL. This CAL licenses any device to connect to Terminal Services, regardless of how many users actually use that device.
TS User CAL	An alternative to the TS Device CAL is the TS User CAL. This CAL allows one user to connect to Terminal Services from any device.
TS External Connector	The TS External Connector license allows external users to connect to Terminal Services. This is a server-level license, and you will have to license each Terminal Server if you provide external connectivity.
Service Provider License	The Service Provider License is intended for service providers that offer hosted services to their customers.

Typically, the most cost-effective way to license TS is either TS User CALs or TS Device CALs. Alternatively, you can use a combination of TS User and TS Device CALs should the need arise.

On my ASUS U36Jc-B2B laptop, I’ve been trying to copy large files (>3GB) to my (work’s) Western Digital Passport 3.0 750GB USB drive. However, this always resulted in the drive disconnecting and the copy operation failing. I’ve tried numerous driver uninstall and reinstall with the same result, until I found a post linking to this driver.
This is the 3.5.24.0 version. The latest posted version of this driver on ASUS’s website was 3.0.116.3.
Nonetheless, I can now copy files without the drive disconnecting.
I’m not sure the throughput is 100% as I’ve seen the same drive hit upto 92MB/s on my Intel desktop machine.
Hope this helps anyone out there with similar issues.

1. Right-click on Computer, click Manage and then Disk Management in the Computer Management console.
2. Right-click DATA (D:) and click Shrink Volume.
3. Specify the amount of space you want to shrink in Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB and click Shrink.
4. A new free space will appear in Disk 0. Right-click this free area and click New Simple Volume.
5. Follow the New Simple Volume Wizard and click Next, enter the size in Simple volume in MB. If you want to add more than one partition, do not allocate the full size. If you just want to add one partition, click Next.
6. Follow the wizard to assign a drive letter and format the partition to finish.

An interesting white paper of why VMware should be your only consideration in terms of virtualization.
Top 10 Reasons Why VMware vSphere 5 is Years Ahead of the Competition

While trying to debug PowerChute Network Shutdown 3.0 on ESXi5, an improper shutdown of the DFSR server resulted in the following:

Source : DFSR
Catagory : None
Event ID : 2104
Type: Error
Description :
The DFS Replication service failed to recover from an internal database error on volume F:. Replication has been stopped for all replicated folders on this volume.
Additional Information: Error: 9203 (The database is corrupt (-1018)) Volume: DB587759-DC0B-11DC-940D-00304888DB13 Database: F:System Volume InformationDFSR

Steps to resolve:

1. Stop the “DFS Replication” service.
2. On the drive(s) in question, grant yourself full permission to the hidden system “System Volume Information” folder.
3. Navigate to each replication group the server was a member of and delete (or move to be extra careful) each hidden system “DfsrPrivate” folder.
4. Start the “DFS Replication” service.

You may now treat the server as a brand new member for the replication groups. Now all you need to deal with is DFSR’s sloppy initial replication routines (hint: those missing files are in the “DfsrPrivate PreExisting” folder).
http://www.eventidwiki.com/index.php?title=Event_ID_:_2104,_DFSR
However this did not work the folder would not rename under 2008 even with UAC off, this did work for me though

1. Click Start, right click Command prompt and click run as administrator to open a command prompt window, then go to driverletter:System Volume Informationdfsr prompt
2. Type “ren “old folder name” “new folder name””

Use this simple vbscript to allow recovery of DFS Replicated files that have been pushed into the ConflictAndDeleted or PreExisting folders due to misadventure.
You might also find the %systemVolume%windowsdebug folder useful.