Developers new to Active Directory programming might find it frustrating that the ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider example codes provided by Microsoft does not seem to work, at least on Windows 2008 R2 with ASP.NET 4.0 using “logon” usernames eg. “administrator”, “domain\joe”.

The reason is because the ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider by default maps username to as UPN username (User Principal Name, ie. joe@domain.com) instead of SAM account name (Security Accounts Manager, ie. administrator, domain\joe).

To enable logging on using SAM account name, add attributeMapUsername=”SAMAccountName” to your web.config:

This article gives a graphical and guided tutorial on how to deploy and configure a Microsoft SharePoint Services (SPS) 3.0 with Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows Server operating system for a company extranet.

What You’ll Need:

1. Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2008
2. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0.
3. Internet Information Services 6.0 or 7.0 configured and functional.
4. Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008. (Recommended)

(more…)

Problem: Even on a fairly modern PC running Core i7, Internet Explorer 8 seems to take significant time to load if anti-malware softwares that relies on Internet Explorer’s Zones to block sites (> 100,000+ records). Since Windows Explorer is tightly integrated with Internet Explorer, it slows down significantly as well.

Solution: There are no permanent solutions at the moment other than deleting all the keys under zone maps set by your anti-malware software: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect network resources from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that the Server service handles RPC requests. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Recommendation. Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.

Known Issues. None

Continue reading…

In UNIX-like operating systems, we usually employ iptables to block a certain range of IPs. Unbeknown to most Windows server admins, there is too, a wizard-based iptables-like solution on Windows Server operating systems.

(more…)