Administration and troubleshooting guides for Windows Server environments.
Active Directory issues, DNS and DHCP problems, Group Policy errors, certificate services, time synchronization, role failures, and practical PowerShell automation.
Focused on real-world server maintenance, stability, and production support.
In most enterprise environments, software inventory is treated as a solved problem. Tools like Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM/SCCM), Intune, or even basic registry parsing are deployed, tuned, and assumed to provide complete visibility. But inventory tools only report what is formally installed via Windows Installer, MSI, or recognized deployment mechanisms. They miss what lives … Read more
When working in a Windows domain you will eventually face a situation where all machines need to trust a specific certificate. This can be an internal PKI a proxy with SSL inspection or internal services using custom TLS certificates. Installing certificates manually on each machine does not scale. It takes time it is easy to … Read more
Sometimes, a routine helpdesk ticket turns into a full-scale infrastructure investigation. It started with a standard user complaint: the clock on their Windows workstation was drifting, being almost a full day behind. Usually, in situations like this, I rely on my standard routine to reset the Windows Time Service (0x80070426). I connected to the problematic … Read more
I recently ran into a classic “ghost in the machine” scenario: users on a new Windows Server 2019 terminal server reported that they couldn’t access the internet. The server had been recently stood up by a colleague, and like most RDS environments, we use a proxy configured via Group Policy. Here’s the kicker: gpresult /r … Read more
In large Windows DNS infrastructures, it is common to find A records without corresponding PTR records. This typically happens when: Over time, this leads to inconsistent forward/reverse DNS resolution. This article describes a production PowerShell script that: The Script Why Missing PTR Records Are a Problem Missing reverse records can cause: Example: If no PTR … Read more
Windows Updates were stuck on Downloading for an extended period, sometimes even for days, without ever progressing to the installation phase. In this situation, the wuauserv process is often hung internally, it keeps the service in a RUNNING state but does not progress the update workflow. Restarting the service forces Windows Update to reinitialize its … Read more