Building a Remote Desktop Gateway (RDG) / RD Gateway Server
Posted on 05.Jan 2011 by Ray Heffer in Business & IT, Microsoft, Tech Tips, Windows Server 2008 R2Creating a Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) is straight forward and can be used to securely access your Windows servers over port 443 using the Remote Desktop Connection Client. I use this to access my home lab when I’m on the road or at work, and it saves exposing your machines to the internet directly over RDP (TCP 3389). The RD Gateway isn’t new, in fact it was available on Windows Server 2008 as TS Gateway, and the installation is the same. For this article, I will be using Windows Server 2008 R2. 
Cloning Windows Server 2008 R2: Use Sysprep (no more NewSID)
Posted on 30.Jul 2010 by Ray Heffer in Citrix, Microsoft, Virtualisation, VMware, Windows Server 2008 R2
It is not uncommon for system administrators to clone virtual servers or take an image of physical servers running Windows Server 2008 these days. There are plenty of tools to do that these days (Ghost, Acronis, Platespin for P2V conversions, etc.) If this is something you do regularly then you won’t be unfamiliar with Sysprep or NewSID, but according to Mark Russinovich at Microsoft, the SID doesn’t matter and Sysinternals have now retired NewSID (written by Mark). NewSID isn’t supported in Windows Server 2008 and the only option now is to use Sysprep. Whilst the facts presented on Mark’s blog are correct, I have personally seen many issues cloning or imaging Windows Server 2008 machines that haven’t been cloned with Sysprep first. Let me present a typical scenario that would cause problems here.
How to turn off Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration in Windows Server 2008
Posted on 27.Jul 2010 by Ray Heffer in Microsoft, Windows Server 2008 R2Prior to Windows Server 2008, the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) feature could be disabled using Add/Remove Programs and choosing Windows Components. However since Windows Server 2008, this is now only configurable using server manager.
