First published on TechNet on Jan 08, 2015
Hey y'all, Mark and Tom and some new members to AskPFEPlat to tackle your questions in the new year. Hope everyone was able to take some time off and re-charge. How are those new year's resolutions going? Be healthier? Read more? Learn a new technology? Get certified? More on that later. By this point in the year most people have already dropped them. Stick with it! Alright let's get into the Q&A.
Forest and domain functional level support
Question
Windows Server 2003 is end of life July 14, 2015, I guess that means we should start upgrading Active Directory. Any useful links I need to know about?
Answer
Now is probably a really good time to start on this if you haven't started already. Seriously. I know some of you are probably thinking "Really? Still on 2003?" I assure you it is true. So if this is you time to get started.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Core-Infrastructure-and-Security/Best-Practices-for-Implement...
And
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Core-Infrastructure-and-Security/Upgrading-or-Migrating-Activ...
Question
We will upgrade all of our Domain Controllers (DCs) to Windows Server 2012 R2 in the coming weeks/months, but the forest and domain functional levels will remain at “Windows Server 2003” – are we supported after 14. July 2015?
Answer
Gary Green here to answer this. As you pointed out, the end of extended support is fast approaching for Windows Server 2003:
However, the answer to your question is “YES” - you are supported as long as the operating system(s) you have deployed for your DCs are supported.
Forest Functional Level (ffl) and Domain Functional Level (dfl) control certain functionality within the Active Directory forest and/or domain respectively and are not affected by OS lifecycle limits.
Active Directory Functional Levels Technical Reference:
A few things you should know about raising the DFL (and/or) FFL to Windows Server 2008 R2
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Core-Infrastructure-and-Security/A-few-things-you-should-know...
Question
Should I be defragging my SSD? I see lots of info all over the place what's the story?
Answer
This topic is being put to bed by Scott Hanselman's excellent post that should not be missed by anyone.
Question
I’m on a 2012 R2 server and don’t have portqry or telnet available. Is there another method to test if a port is open on a remote machine?
Answer
Longtime reader now Microsoft FTE Mike Kline has this one.
On Windows 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 running version PowerShell 4.0 you can use the Test-NetConnection cmdlet
In the examples below we are testing for port 389 (LDAP) between two domain controllers
Notice that we failed to connect to port 389.
When the port is unblocked TcpTestSucceeded is True and the warning message disappears.
Until next time!
Mark 'sweet sassy molassy' Morowczynski, Tom 'Booyah!' Moser, Gary 'First Timer' Green, Mike 'Finally a Blue Badge' Kline