Technical Support Interview Questions 2 1. What is BIOS?

? Ans: BIOS stands for Basic Input-Output System and is pronounced as Bye-Ose. The BIOS is available on all the computers. It makes sure that all the components of the computer can function together. It has information about all the hardware components in the Computer. BIOS can also be called as a Special Software that interfaces the major hardware components of a computer with the Operating System. It is usually stored in a Flash Memory Chip on the Motherboard. Some functions of BIOS: 1. Performs a POST (Power-On Self Test) for all the different Hardware Components in the System to make sure everything is working properly. 2. Activating other BIOS Chips on different cards installed in the computer, for example, SCSI and Graphics Cards. 3. Provides a set of low-level suiting that the Operating System uses to interface different Hardware devices. BIOS manages things in your computer like the Keyboard, Monitor, Serial and Parallel Ports especially when the computer is Booting up. 4. Manage the settings for Hard-disk drives, System Clock etc. Sequence of things done by the BIOS when you turn on your Computer: 1. Check the CMOS for Custom Settings 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Load the interrupt Handlers and Device Drivers Initialize Registers and Power Management Perform POST (Power On Self Test) Display System Settings Determine which devices are Bootable Initialize the Bootstrap sequence

2. What are the Hardware Components of a Desktop Computer / Laptop? Ans: The Hardware Components of a Desktop Computer / Laptop are as follows: 1. The Processor (CPU) 2. Motherboard 3. RAM (Random Access Memory) 4. Power Supply SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply) 5. Hard-disk Drives 6. CD/DVD-ROM Drives

7. Floppy Disk Drive 8. Sound Card 9. Graphics (Display) Card 10. Keyboard 11. Mouse 12. Monitor

3. What are Hard-Disk Partitions? Ans: Partitions are used to Divide a Hard-disk drive into smaller segments as required by the user and for better management of the space in it.

4. Difference between RAM and ROM? Ans: RAM (Random Access Memory) is used to temporarily store information that the computer is currently working on. ROM (Read Only Memory) This is a Permanent type of memory storage used by computers for important data which never changes. (Example: BIOS)

5. What would you check if there is no sound from your computer? (Audio not working) 1. Check for cable connections 2. Check for power to the speakers 3. Check for volume control 4. Check for device drivers

6. If a Customer complains that his computer is working really slow, what are the things you would check? 1. Check if it is taking longer than usual to start up 2. Check if it is slow with one / any particular application or slow overall.

3. Check for Spyware/Malware/Virus in the computer 4. Check the available Hard-Disk Drive Space in the computer.

7. What is the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)? . Ans: A Blue Screen of Death (or just a Blue Screen Error) is an indication of a Critical System Problem wherein the Computer freezes altogether and does not respond to anything. To rectify this problem, try Restarting the computer or Booting into Safe Mode. For more information, read this.

8. Why are Device Drivers required? Ans: A Device Driver (or just Driver) is a piece of software which is requied to run every Hardware Component present in the computer.

9. Name one of the latest Computer Processors (CPU) ? Ans: Intel Pentium Quad Core, Intel I3, I5, I7 processors.

10. What is Ping? Ans: Ping is a command that checks the connectivity with an IP address. For more read this article

11. What is a Data Cable? Ans: A Data Cable is a Thin Plastic band-like cable used to connect the Data-Devices like Harddisk drives, Floppy Disk Drives, CD/DVD-ROM drives with the motherboard. Data Cables are primarily used for Data Transfer.

12. Lights on a Modem / LAN Card: Ans: Generally, there are 04 lights. They indicate the following: 1. Power Light: Shows if the device (Modem)is getting Power Supply or not. 2. Link Light: Indicates if the device is getting broadband/internet signals properly from the ISP 3. Data Light: Indicates wether the internet is working or not. 4. Connectivity Light: Indicates the Modem is connected to a PC or not.

13. Name some of the Ports available in a Computer Ans: Some of the commonly available ports in a Computer are as follows: 1. Keyboard & Mouse Ports Also known as PS/2 ports 2. USB Ports 3. VGA Ports 4. Sound Ports 5. LAN Port Also known as Ethernet Port

14. What does the term USB stand for? Ans: USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It allows devices to be connected or disconnected from a computer without shutting down or restarting the computer. The current version of USB is 2.0

15.What is the difference between CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) and LCD (Flat Screen Monitors)? Ans: CRT Monitors: The Monitor has a picture tube and uses a light-gun to highlight pixels on the screen. LCD Monitors: These monitors do not have a picture tube and contain a layer of liquid crystals on an Electronic Board.

16.What is an IP Address? Ans: An IP address is a unique numerical identifier of every device on a network. A typical IP address can look like this: 216.27.61.141. To detect a computers IP Address, go to Start Run Type in CMD in the Run Dialogue Box and click OK or hit <Enter> In the Command Prompt Screen that comes up, type in IPCONFIG and hit <Enter>

17. What is DHCP? Ans: DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. It is used to generate & provide IP addresses to the computers on a network.

18. What is DNS? Ans: DNS stands for Domain Name Services it is used to convert URLs into IP addresses and vice-versa.

19. Mention a sample computer configuration: Ans: 1. Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz 2. 2 GB RAM 3. 300GB HDD 4. DVD Writer 5. 17 inches LCD Monitor 6. Keyboard 7. Mouse

20. Name any Five Microsoft Office Applications: Ans:

1. MS Word 2. MS Excel 3. MS Powerpoint 4. MS Access 5. MS Outlook

21. What are RJ45 and RJ11 connectors? Ans: RJ45 connectors are used for LAN/Ethernet connections and RJ11 connectors are used for Telephone Cable connections.

22.What is a Parallel Windows installation? Ans: When the first installation of Windows fails to boot for some reason, another copy of Windows is installed in teh same drive but in a different directory (so that the customer can access to and backup his old data). This is called Parallel Installation of Windows.

23.Name some of the versions of Windows XP. Ans: Windows XP Home Edition, Professional, Media Center Edition, Tablet PC Edition, Mobile

24.What are the components needed to setup a Basic Home Network? Ans: LAN Cards, LAN Cables, Router/Hub

25. Difference betwen a WORKGROUP and a DOMAIN? Ans: In a Workgroup, all the computers function as Peers. But in a Domain, One computer is the Server and the others are Clients.

26. What is the difference between FAT32 and NTFS file systems? Ans: 1. NTFS allows compression and file encryption. FAT32 does not. 2. NTFS is more secure than FAT32

27. What does BOOT.INI do? Ans: Boot.ini lists all the Operating Systems present in the computer and provide information about which partitions they are located on.

28. How would you access the Recovery Console in Windows? Ans: By booting with the Windows XP CD and following the on-screen instructrions. The Recovery Console can also be installed in your computer.

29. Provide the names of a few Firewalls: Ans: Norton, McAfee, Zone Alarm etc

30.What feature of Outlook Express allows multiple customers to send and receive emails, each using a separate account? Ans: Identities

ake a call from a customer who is very upset they cant work how do you deal with this? Answered by: shashi on: Nov 7th, 2013 Customer support field is very bad field . Just patience and patience ...Mental frustration too.... Answered by: udaykalidindi on: Jun 2nd, 2009

This is a common problem faced by a every one working in helpdesk.1st thing don't try to argue with him. 2ndly try to understand the issues or problems he is facing.3rdly don't promise him heaven and ... Answer Question Select Best Answer Ie browser redirect Asked By: Big Al | Asked On: May 12th, 2008 9 answers A user calls and every time he launches internet explorer he gets the page cant be displayed right before this his virus software had detected virus...What could be causing this problem you checked the settings in ie and its has the correct homepage Answered by: Belinda on: Sep 8th, 2013 The system is affected with M a l w a r e. Run Malware software (Malware Bytes , Hijack This) and reboot. Answered by: Noel de Leon MCP on: May 22nd, 2013 PC is infected by a Malware (Rootkit). To remove it, you can copy and paste the link of a website to the address bar to run an ANTI-ROOTKIT software. Then, check the "hosts" file in C:Windowssystem32d... Answer Question Select Best Answer Windows power user groups Asked By: sunilbaglur | Asked On: May 14th, 2013 2 answers What is the difference between power user group in XP Answered by: Belinda on: Sep 8th, 2013 and power user group in windows 7?

By default, members of this group have no more user rights or permissions than a standard user account. The Power Users group in previous versions of Windows was designed to give users specific admini... Answered by: Resurch on: Jun 24th, 2013 Basically, Power Users can: Run legacy applications, in addition to Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional certified applications. Install programs that do not modify operating system files or inst... Answer Question Select Best Answer What is bluescreen death? Asked By: Weng Sam | Asked On: Sep 1st, 2013

1 answer What is bluescreen? What would you do if your pc turns into bluescreen? Answered by: ARUN on: Sep 1st, 2013 major problem is RAM first check with ram then go to safe mode scan your PC by using antivirus at the same time update drivers it should be mother board supported drivers or else use recommended software Answer Question Select Best Answer What is syswow64 folder? Asked By: sunilbaglur | Asked On: May 14th, 2013 1 answer Answered by: Nishanth on: Aug 26th, 2013 It is normally found in the 64 Bit OS egs: 64bit Win7. This is very similar to the system32 of the 32 bit OS Answer Question Select Best Answer Ntldr error meaning Asked By: adpatel33 | Asked On: Apr 7th, 2012 11 answers When I boot my computer I have seen on my screen " verifying dmi pool data" and then after second line is shown "ntldr is missing..." what is this problem and who can I solve it. Answered by: srikant on: Jul 13th, 2013 insert the bootable xp cd restart the computer and during bootup press r to repair then copy the ntldr file from cd and paste it on c drive thats it Answered by: darshansavi on: Mar 21st, 2013 Remove the hdd connect that hdd to same configuration PC of the another and restart it, the hdd having Corrupted OS will appear as external HDD, then go C drive the current PC, in Folder options then ... Answer Question Select Best Answer What is uac (user account control)? Asked By: sunilbaglur | Asked On: May 14th, 2013 3 answers

Answered by: Santosh Kumar Sha on: Jul 5th, 2013 user account control setting is a tools for administration that raise & alert if you modify the privilege of administrator.user account control protect your computer from malicious software because it allow user to notice when a document & program trying access. Answered by: Resurch on: Jun 8th, 2013 User Account Control (UAC) is a feature in Windows that can help prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. UAC does this by asking you for permission or an administrator password before perfor... Answer Question Select Best Answer What is difference between win XP and wn 7 technically? Asked By: Dastagir Amir Hamaja | Asked On: Jun 18th, 2011 21 answers Answered by: Resurch on: Jun 8th, 2013 There are lots of difference between the windows XP and the Windows 7. Here are some of the differences listed below The shutdown and the start up is very fast in Windows 7 when compared to the... Answered by: shashank vedante on: May 22nd, 2013 1.Windows Xp comes with default mail client(outlook express) where as windows 7 doesn't come with any default mail client. 2. Windows XP supports on ip-version4 addressing where as Windows 7 supports ... Answer Question Select Best Answer Define hosts and lm hosts file? Asked By: sunilbaglur | Asked On: May 14th, 2013 2 answers Answered by: Resurch on: Jun 3rd, 2013 The "HOSTS" file contains entries that simulate "A" records in DNS (and PTR records, too). Only DNS-legal names are allowed in this file. The "LMHOSTS" file contains entries that simulate NetBIOS nam... Answered by: Linda Calkins on: May 30th, 2013 HOSTS file A text file in a TCP/IP network that specifies the IP addresses of computer names and domain names (the hostnames). The LMHOSTS (LAN Manager Hosts) file is used to enable domain name resolution under Windows when other methods, such as WINS, fail. Answer Question Select Best Answer

What is the difference between win XP and win 7/8? Asked By: sunilbaglur | Asked On: May 14th, 2013 1 answer Answered by: Anish on: May 20th, 2013 First of all graphic difference and then XP support IP Ver. 4 only and window 7 support IP Ver. 4 and 6 both Answer Question Select Best Answer What is the difference between server os and desktop os Asked By: cnchandrashekar | Asked On: Jun 3rd, 2008 8 answers Answered by: sdvedane on: May 14th, 2013 As name says Desktop OS is mainly used for client computers for normal users like windows98. 2000, xp, 7 etc. and server OS is mainly used for managing users and network resources and used by Administrator like Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008, R2 Answered by: Amol Patil on: Oct 10th, 2012 1.With server OS we can manage desktop OS. Server Os is higher version of Desktop OS. 2.server OS gives centralized administration for users shared resources higher security. But Desktop OS gives loc... Answer Question Select Best Answer Getting error while actiVATing the windows8 Asked By: mohitdns | Asked On: Mar 19th, 2013 Hi all, i am getting below error while actiVATing the windows8. Please help: the file name, directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect Answer Question Blue screen death Asked By: tshepisobo | Asked On: Sep 20th, 2011 12 answers What is a blue screen of death ? How do you trouble shoot the computer in such situation ? Answered by: Yash Agarwal on: Mar 19th, 2013 Blue Screen Error is mainly due to hardware incompatibility or any software file incompatibility with the system. If this incompatibility can effect the system hardware or software, then the system du...

Answered by: Maz on: Oct 5th, 2012 In most cases blue screen is there for few seconds and system keeps rebooting. First of all you need to get to the error message. A very good feature of win xp is to press F8 on startup and select do... Answer Question Select Best Answer Outlook Asked By: Manjunath G | Asked On: Feb 8th, 2013 1 answer How to configure outlook? Answered by: Uday on: Feb 12th, 2013 Normally outlook can be configured in two ways Automatic and other is manual.in Automatic setting there is nothing to configure all u need is to provide a valid credentials.but in manual u should firs... Answer Question Select Best Answer

Enable usb ports Asked By: blayne | Asked On: Sep 20th, 2011 10 answers I have disabled all usb ports on my stationary computer, my mouse and keyboard don't work... How do I enable it back? Please help... i cannot press f2 to get into bios, nothing works... Keyboard or mouse... Answered by: troubleshooter on: Feb 7th, 2013 Type in Run window regedit and click OK After registry editor Open Goes to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesUsbStor In the Right Pane Double Click on Start and Type in Value 4 USB Port is Disabled Type Value 3 For Enable USB Port Answered by: Joe Benliro on: Nov 14th, 2012 Use a PS2 type keyboard to get into BIOS or reset the BIOS by removing the CMOS battery and replace it after a few minutes.

Answer Question Select Best Answer How do you backup emails on ms outlook? Asked By: SiziRose | Asked On: Apr 26th, 2011 5 answers Answered by: Shafi23 on: Nov 27th, 2012 you can save outlook mails on your hard drive in *.pst format and after that you can backup it in USB hard-drive or cd/dvd Answered by: Umesh Raghav on: Sep 28th, 2012 Go to control panel open the mail option then open the data file after that select the personnel folder and click on open folder copy that .pst and close all the options which were open and then paste that .pst backup where you want to place that backup Answer Question Select Best Answer What is the difference between outlook & outlook express?What is ip range in networking side? How we will troubleshoot outlook?How we will configure ldap on outlook? Asked By: rajeevsoniji | Asked On: Aug 1st, 2007 17 answers Answered by: Salik on: Sep 30th, 2012 Guys have done a gr8 job, nothing else left to be answered.. I just wanna say: Gilbert, Hitesh & Syed_nrpt has provided wrong set of answers. Everyone else (Upto my this post/msg) is right about IP range. Answered by: Yogesh Kumar on: Apr 30th, 2012 Outlook is the edition of Microsoft Office (Outlook file Extension is .pst) & Outlook Express is the edition of Internet Explorer (Outlook Express file Extension is .dbx). Answer Question Select Best Answer Spool service Asked By: Big Al | Asked On: May 12th, 2008 9 answers How can I tell if the print spool in running and where is it located? Where does it store spooled print jobs?

Answered by: vikara on: Sep 26th, 2012 DHCP: Port 546 (DHCP Client port for IPv6) should not be used by any other process while rogue detection is enabled Answered by: rakesh reddy on: Sep 23rd, 2012 type services.msc and search for print spooler service and make sure it is set to automatic, and now try to print hope your issue should be fixed by now. Answer Question Select Best Answer What is the difference between language and technology? Asked By: jeevan | Asked On: Aug 19th, 2011 2 answers Answered by: Rajan Choudhary on: Aug 19th, 2012 Technology is the way in which a current problem statement is Resolved. and Language by the way in which the technology has been Implemented. e.g Silverlight is technology which comes from Microsoft... Answered by: Nikhil on: Sep 4th, 2011 Launguage is used to programing to develop applications. Technology is set of programmes to find a new way of solving current systems backlogs. Answer Question Select Best Answer Connectivity troubleshooting Asked By: kalahari | Asked On: Sep 26th, 2010 9 answers A user in a corporate network contacts service desk saying he/she has lost network connectivity: how will you troubleshoot the issue? What are the steps to followed? Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: Anele Takane View all answers by Anele Takane Member Since Jan-2011 | Answered On : Jan 6th, 2011 1. Check the cable if it is connected to the workstation/ notebook and if it is receiving signal from the switch.

2. Check using the command "ipconfig" to confirm the IP range that the user's machine is in if it is using APIPA address, This will mean the machine can not reach the DHCP server and if the user has an assigned static address try pinging the gateway, DNS,Proxy Server or one of the Domain Controllers. 3. If all pinged replies successfully check to see the proxy settings through Lan Settings on your Browser. 4. Depending on the structure of your corporate network you might need to check the mac address (of the user's workstation) on the cisco switches (if used) to find out which VLan is it in and move it to the correct VLan. Answered by: praveen on: Aug 2nd, 2012 !st check thee cable...and immediate click on network connectivity...go to run cmd den ipconfig /release then..ipconfig /renew den refresh2 to 3 times on desktop...definitely..it should works... Answered by: Vinit on: Jul 26th, 2012 If you're getting an error message limited activity by right clicking on the connectivity icon on the task bar, use ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew commands refresh the desktop and check. If th..

What is bluescreen death? Asked By: Weng Sam | Asked On: Sep 1st, 2013 1 answer What is bluescreen? What would you do if your pc turns into bluescreen? Answered by: ARUN on: Sep 1st, 2013 major problem is RAM first check with ram then go to safe mode scan your PC by using antivirus at the same time update drivers it should be mother board supported drivers or else use recommended software Answer Question Select Best Answer How will you install operating system in more than 50 pc at a time when the all pcs having same configuration. Asked By: san_pradeep59 | Asked On: Sep 18th, 2007 19 answers

Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: prasad samant Answered On : Nov 20th, 2007 Other way is If the pcs are on network you can have RIS or WDS setup. Requirement for clients is they should have network bootable NIC Answered by: ritesh on: Jul 14th, 2012 we can use another service like RIS (Remote Installation Server). By the help of it we can install o/s to multiple systems Answered by: raj on: Jul 1st, 2012 ghost is not secured installed WDS (windows deployment services) it is the way for network instillation Improve Answer Unable to view deleted files in recycle bin (winxp) Asked By: suresh pa | Asked On: Jun 10th, 2008 6 answers I deleted my files, but I didn't see that files in my recycle bin.Pls anybody help me... Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: bspkumar View all answers by bspkumar Member Since Sep-2007 | Answered On : Jul 25th, 2009 Every one is suggesting what to do next time. he is asking how to recover the deleted file now. First step you need to do is stop working on the hard disk in which you have lost the file. Otherwise, the file will be overwritten by another file. Then run any of the file recovery software. If you have already used the same hard disk, the chances of recovering the file is less. Answered by: sivananduri on: Nov 28th, 2011

File deletion will be 2 types. Temporary & Permanent. If the file is deleted without selecting shift button, it will come to recycle bin. Otherwise the file will be deleted permanently. In such cas... Answered by: bspkumar on: Jul 25th, 2009 Every one is suggesting what to do next time. he is asking how to recover the deleted file now.First step you need to do is stop working on the hard disk in which you have lost the file. Otherwise, th... Improve Answer Printing problems Asked By: Big Al | Asked On: May 12th, 2008 3 answers User sent a job but it is stuck in the local cue how can you delete it? Name a couple ways Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: syed_nrp View all questions by syed_nrp View all answers by syed_nrp Member Since Apr-2008 | Answered On : Jan 3rd, 2009 You first Install the proper printer driver install. Check that printer is on/off status. Then give a test page. The test page is not printing, go To RUN-->services.msc check printspooler give stop and start. it's work fine Answered by: Dastagir Amir Hamaja on: Jun 18th, 2011 Go to start, setting , priter and faxes, there you will see your printer, double click that printer, you will find jobs you have printed, right click that job and try to delete it. If not deleting then restart printer spooler services. if not deleting then restart printer and pc.

Thanks, Dastagir Answered by: syed_nrp on: Jan 3rd, 2009 You first Install the proper printer driver install. Check that printer is on/off status. Then give a test page. The test page is not printing, go To RUN-->services.msc

check printspooler give stop and start. it's work fine Improve Answer Troubleshooting a slow computer Asked By: sanj108 | Asked On: Nov 12th, 2009 8 answers A user calls in and complains that her computer and network is running very slow. How would go about troubleshooting it? Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: smokedragon View all answers by smokedragon Member Since Nov-2009 | Answered On : Nov 18th, 2009 I would first ask the user whether every application on the computer is slow or is it just one particular application. if it is just one, try and sort that out. If the answer is all applications are running slow, look at common causes like, virus scans scheduled, free disk space on the home drive, RAM, lastly if the deployment team is rolling out any updates (which should not be done during business hours, but i've seen that happen too ;) If you suspect network latency, a simple ping test from the user's computer will tell you how many milli seconds network traffic is taking to reach the server. Answered by: rgawthorne on: Oct 26th, 2010 First question, when did the problem start? Is anyone else in the same work group experience slowness.Does it happen all the time, or is it intermittent, any patterns of timings eg, in the morning ... Answered by: DanielGoad on: Jul 23rd, 2010 'Slow' is a relative question, so first determine what the user is experiencing. Is it slow opening applications or while working in them? is this a networked application or local? ... Improve Answer What is the difference between windows XP and windows 2000 Asked By: cnchandrashekar | Asked On: Jun 3rd, 2008 7 answers Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: bspkumar

View all answers by bspkumar Member Since Sep-2007 | Answered On : Jul 20th, 2008 Windows XP Vs windows 2000 .

OS Feature

XP

2000

Release

2001

2000

NT

5.1

5.0

32/64 bit

32/64 bit

32 bit

built-in CD writer support

Remote Desktop Connection, Internet Connection Firewall, Fast UserSwitching

Windows Media Player and Windows Messenge

File sys support

FAT16,32,NTFS,HPFS (High- FAT16,32,NTFS Performance File System)

Answered by: syed_nrp on: Apr 30th, 2009 Windows XP has 4 Versions, Windows 2000 has 3 ver. (Win 2000 Pro, Server & AD. Server).Windows XP has last known good configuration [last used desktop ] which is not present in Windows 2000. Remo... Answered by: hezysasson on: Nov 10th, 2008 Win. XP has drivers that "recognize" hardware easier and faster with system set up. Improve Answer Steps to secure windows Asked By: ravila23 | Asked On: Feb 21st, 2008 2 answers Describe steps you would take to secure windows 2000 server resources and files. Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: shashi jadhav View all answers by shashi jadhav Member Since Sep-2008 | Answered On : Sep 26th, 2008

There are lot of secure option for Windows, You can secure by Set a difficult password for administrator Disable gust account Give minimum & limit permissions to administrator's members Make minimum share folder on your Windows's Give minimum share permission on that folder & full control to trust users Always change the administrator password Install third part firewall & set minimum port. Access & deny those user's & IP which you don't want to access to your computer. Don't share your password. Answered by: shashi jadhav on: Sep 26th, 2008

There are lot of secure option for Windows, You can secure by - Set a difficult password for administrator Disable gust account Give minimum & limit permissions to administrator's members ... Answered by: amjad1233 on: Apr 26th, 2008 To Secure the windows following steps should be considered : 1. Making admistration account and giving only requried rights to child accounts 2. Putting some external Anti-Virus to protect from the threats 3. Making some registray changes to be help full and other Improve Answer Desktop support & help desk Asked By: Brianseawood | Asked On: Jun 17th, 2008 1 answer What is the technical difference between desktop support & help desk ? Read Best Answer Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: radelapena View all answers by radelapena Member Since Aug-2008 | Answered On : Aug 24th, 2008 The difference between desktop support and helpdesk are the following: 1. Desktop support is the one doing the troubleshooting on hand. 2. Helpdesk support is the one receiving the call and troubleshoot it remotely Answered by: radelapena on: Aug 24th, 2008 The difference between desktop support and helpdesk are the following: 1. Desktop support is the one doing the troubleshooting on hand. 2. Helpdesk support is the one receiving the call and troubleshoot it remotely Improve Answer Windows XP core files Asked By: rrsain | Asked On: Aug 4th, 2008 1 answer What are the core files required to boot windows xp? Read Best Answer

Editorial / Best Answer Answered by: afal.omar View all answers by afal.omar Member Since Aug-2008 | Answered On : Aug 5th, 2008 ntldr, boot.ini, bootsect.dos, ntdetect.com, ntbootdd.sys, ntoskrnl.exe, hal.dll, system, device drivers (s.sys) Answered by: afal.omar on: Aug 5th, 2008 ntldr, boot.ini, bootsect.dos, ntdetect.com, ntbootdd.sys, ntoskrnl.exe, hal.dll, system, device drivers (s.sys) Interview Questions and Answers for Desktop Support Engineer Position Question: Discuss your daily routine as a desktop engineer. Answer: Relate examples of support to employees on their desktop systems, including network servers, desktop computers, printers, laptops etc. Question: What is your specialty? Have you provided desktop support for hardware, software or both? Answer: Are you Microsoft/Cisco certified? If you are, give details. Speak about the procedures you follow to test/maintain equipment and software operation. Discuss any courses you have taken or manuals and processes you have studied, and more so, applied practically. Question: Have you tested network and desktop systems? Have you de-bugged computerized systems? Answer: In your answer, describe the process you took to identify and solve problems that affect computer systems. Provide examples if necessary. Tell how you test/trouble-shoot computers to ensure they function properly. Question: Describe physical setting up of hardware and software systems installation for various applications and programs. Answer: Relate your experience in installing and testing computer systems and ensuring their proper function. Question: Have you upgraded computer systems or offered recommendations on upgrades needed? Answer: Describe a major upgrade in which you were heavily involved. A success story.

Something youre proud about. Explain the step taken to ensure smooth upgrade. Rehearse, dont memorize; be clear and succinct. Question: Have you trained or coached employees on computer systems? Answer: If yes, report on the training programs youve designed and implemented for staff. Detail the manner in which you directed them regarding operation of computer hardware/software systems. Question: Are you a team player? Did you generally work in a team to solve problems? Do you worked independently as well? Answer: As a desktop engineer you must have the ability to work with others and alone. Describe how you have worked with your staff members to determine solutions to major issues. Impart as well your own individual assessments to identify minor failures and how youve used your communication skills to consult others for solutions to problems beyond your specialty. Question: Have you been responsible for purchasing new computer systems for your organization? Answer: If yes, explain how youve worked with vendors (suppliers) and with the procurement department. Explain methods used to assess future computer needs in the organization. Question: Describe other duties you undertook that were beyond the scope of your work. Have you interacted with the IT staff? Answer: Communicate your ability to handle different tasks and challenges. Show how you are well versed with special systems and communicate with professionals in your area of expertise. Include coordinating with Information Technology professionals to enhance system communication, peripherals and network operation. You may also relate your experience in installing computer performance monitoring equipment. Desktop Support Interview questions with answers Part -1 Interview Questions =================== A) Tell me something about yourself. Tell about your education, place you belong to, some struggle in life which shows that you have positive attitude and will to fight the odds. B) Technical Questions: 1) What is Active Directory?

A central component of the Windows platform, Active Directory directory service provides the means to manage the identities and relationships that make up network environments. For example we can create, manage and administor users, computers and printers in the network from active directory.

2) What is DNS? Why it is used? What is "forward lookup" and "reverse lookup" in DNS? What are A records and mx records? DNS is domain naming service and is used for resolving names to IP address and IP addresses to names. The computer understands only numbers while we can easily remember names. So to make it easier for us what we do is we assign names to computers and websites. When we use these names (Like yahoo.com) the computer uses DNS to convert to IP address (number) and it executes our request. Forward lookup: Converting names to IP address is called forward lookup. Reverse lookup: Resolving IP address to names is called reverse lookup. 'A' record: Its called host record and it has the mapping of a name to IP address. This is the record in DNS with the help of which DNS can find out the IP address of a name. 'MX' Record: its called mail exchanger record. Its the record needed to locate the mail servers in the network. This record is also found in DNS.

3) What id DHCP? Why it is used? What are scopes and super scopes? DHCP:Dynamic host configuration protocol. Its used to allocate IP addresses to large number of PCs in a network environment. This makes the IP management very easy. Scope: Scope contains IP address like subnet mask, gateway IP, DNS server IP and exclusion range which a client can use to communicate with the other PCs in the network. Superscope: When we combine two or more scopes together its called super scope.

4) What are the types of LAN cables used? What is a cross cable? Types of LAN cables that are in use are "Cat 5" and "Cat 6". "Cat 5" can support 100 Mbps of speed and "CAT 6" can support 1Gbps of speed. Cross cable: Its used to connect same type of devices without using a switch/hub so that they can communicate.

5) What is the difference between a normal LAN cable and cross cable? What could be the maximum length of the LAN cable? The way the paired wires are connected to the connector (RJ45) is different in cross cable and normal LAN cable. The theoritical length is 100 meters but after 80 meters you may see drop in speed due to loss of signal.

6) What would you use to connect two computers without using switches? Cross cable. 7) What is IPCONFIG command? Why it is used?

IPCONFIG command is used to display the IP information assigned to a computer. Fromthe output we can find out the IP address, DNS IP address, gateway IP address assigned to that computer.

8) What is APIPA IP address? Or what IP address is assigned to the computer when the DHCP server is not available? When DHCP server is not available the Windows client computer assignes an automatic IP address to itself so that it can communicate with the network cmputers. This ip address is called APIPA. ITs in the range of 169.254.X.X. APIPA stands for Automatic private IP addressing. Its in the range of 169.254.X.X.

9) What is a DOMAIN? What is the difference between a domain and a workgroup?Domain is created when we install Active Directory. It's a security boundary which is used to manage computers inside the boundary. Domain can be used to centrally administor computers and we can govern them using common policies called group policies. We can't do the same with workgroup.

10) Do you know how to configure outlook 2000 and outlook 2003 for a user? Please visit the link below to find out how to configure outlook 2000 and outlook 2003.http://www.it.cmich.edu/quickguides/qg_outlook2003_server.asp

11) What is a PST file and what is the difference between a PST file and OST file? What file is used by outlook express? PST file is used to store the mails locally when using outlook 2000 or 2003. OST file is used when we use outlook in cached exchanged mode. Outlook express useds odb file.

12) What is BSOD? What do you do when you get blue screen in a computer? How do you troubleshoot it? BSOD stands for blue screen of Death. when there is a hardware or OS fault due to which the windows OS can run it give a blue screen with a code. Best way to resolve it is to boot the computer is "LAst known good configuration". If this doesn't work than boot the computer in safe mode. If it boots up than the problemis with one of the devices or drivers.

13) What is RIS? What is Imaging/ghosting? RIS stands for remote installation services. You save the installed image on a windows server and then we use RIS to install the configured on in the new hardware. We can use it to deploy both server and client OS. Imaging or ghosting also does the same job of capturing an installed image and then install it on a new hardware when there is a need. We go for RIS or iamging/ghosting because installing OS everytime using a CD can be a very time consuming task. So to save that time we can go for RIS/Ghosting/imaging.

14) What is VPN and how to configure it? VPN stands for Virtual private network. VPN is used to connect to the corporate network to access the resources like mail and files in the LAN. VPN can be configured using the stepsmentioned in the KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305550 15) Your computer slowly drops out of network. A reboot of the computer fixes the problem. What to do to resolve this issue? Update the network card driver.

16) Your system is infected with Virus? How to recover the data? Install another system. Insall the OS with the lates pathces, Antivirus with latest updates. Connect the infected HDD as secondary drive in the system. Once done scan and clean the secondary HDD. Once done copy the files to the new system.

17) How to join a system to the domain? What type of user can add a system to the domain? Please visit the article below and read "Adding the Workstation to the Domain" http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/directory/activ edirectory/stepbystep/domxppro.mspx 18) What is the difference between a switch and a hub? Switch sends the traffic to the port to which its meant for. Hub sends the traffic to all the ports.

19) What is a router? Why we use it? Router is a switch which uses routing protocols to process and send the traffic. It also receives the traffic and sends it across but it uses the routing protocols to do so.

20) What are manageable and non manageable switches? Switches which can be administered are called manageable switches. For example we can create VLAN for on such switch. On no manageable switches we can't do so. Windows Server Support Interview Questions and Answers (L2)

Windows Server Support Interview Questions and Answers (L2) What is the difference between Authorized DHCP and Non Authorized DHCP? To avoid problems in the network causing by mis-configured DHCP servers, server in windows 2000 must be validate by AD before starting service to clients. If an authorized DHCP finds any DHCP server in the network it stops serving the clients

Difference between inter-site and intra-site replication. Protocols using for replication. Intra-site replication can be done between the domain controllers in the same site. Inter-site replication can be done between two different sites over WAN links BHS (Bridge Head Servers) is responsible for initiating replication between the sites. Inter-site replication can be done B/w BHS in one site and BHS in another site. We can use RPC over IP or SMTP as a replication protocols where as Domain partition is not possible to replicate using SMTP How to monitor replication We can user Replmon tool from support tools Brief explanation of RAID Levels Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 offer two types of disk storage: basic and dynamic. Basic Disk Storage Basic storage uses normal partition tables supported by MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. A disk initialized for basic storage is called a basic disk. A basic disk contains basic volumes, such as primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives. Additionally, basic volumes include multidisc volumes that are created by using Windows NT 4.0 or earlier, such as volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, and stripe sets with parity. Windows XP does not support these multidisk basic volumes. Any volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, or stripe sets with parity must be backed up and deleted or converted to dynamic disks before you install Windows XP Professional. Dynamic Disk Storage Dynamic storage is supported in Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. A disk initialized for dynamic storage is called a dynamic disk. A dynamic disk contains dynamic volumes, such as simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. With dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without the need to restart Windows. Note: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Editionbased computers. You cannot create mirrored volumes or RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-based computers. However, you can use a Windows XP Professional-based computer to create a mirrored or RAID-5 volume on remote computers that are running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, or the Standard, Enterprise and Data Center versions of Windows Server 2003. Storage types are separate from the file system type. A basic or dynamic disk can contain any combination of FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS partitions or volumes.

A disk system can contain any combination of storage types. However, all volumes on the same disk must use the same storage type. To convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk: Use the Disk Management snap-in in Windows XP/2000/2003 to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group. 2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. 3. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. You can also right-click My Computer and choose Manage if you have My Computer displayed on your desktop. 4. In the left pane, click Disk Management. 5. In the lower-right pane, right-click the basic disk that you want to convert, and then click Convert to Dynamic Disk. You must right-click the gray area that contains the disk title on the left side of the Details pane. 6. Select the check box that is next to the disk that you want to convert (if it is not already selected), and then click OK. 7. Click Details if you want to view the list of volumes in the disk. Click Convert. 8. Click Yes when you are prompted to convert the disk, and then click OK. Warning: After you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, local access to the dynamic disk is limited to Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Additionally, after you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, the dynamic volumes cannot be changed back to partitions. You must first delete all dynamic volumes on the disk and then convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk. If you want to keep your data, you must first back up the data or move it to another volume. Dynamic Storage Terms A volume is a storage unit made from free space on one or more disks. It can be formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter. Volumes on dynamic disks can have any of the following layouts: simple, spanned, mirrored, striped, or RAID-5. A simple volume uses free space from a single disk. It can be a single region on a disk or consist of multiple, concatenated regions. A simple volume can be extended within the same disk or onto additional disks. If a simple volume is extended across multiple disks, it becomes a spanned volume. A spanned volume is created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks. You can extend a spanned volume onto a maximum of 32 disks. A spanned volume cannot be mirrored and is not fault-tolerant. A striped volume is a volume whose data is interleaved across two or more physical disks. The data on this type of volume is allocated alternately and evenly to each of the physical disks. A striped volume cannot be mirrored or extended and is not fault-tolerant. Striping is also known as RAID-0. A mirrored volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is duplicated on two physical disks. All of the data on one volume is copied to another disk to provide data redundancy. If one of the disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disk. A mirrored volume cannot be

extended. Mirroring is also known as RAID-1. A RAID-5 volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is striped across an array of three or more disks. Parity (a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data after a failure) is also striped across the disk array. If a physical disk fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that failed disk can be re-created from the remaining data and the parity. A RAID-5 volume cannot be mirrored or extended. The system volume contains the hardware-specific files that are needed to load Windows (for example, Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com). The system volume can be, but does not have to be, the same as the boot volume. The boot volume contains the Windows operating system files that are located in the %Systemroot% and %Systemroot%\System32 folders. The boot volume can be, but does not have to be, the same as the system volume. RAID 0 Striping RAID 1- Mirroring (minimum 2 HDD required) RAID 5 Striping With Parity (Minimum 3 HDD required) RAID levels 1 and 5 only gives redundancy What are the different backup strategies are available Normal Backup Incremental Backup Differential Backup Daily Backup Copy Backup What is a global catalog Global catalog is a role, which maintains Indexes about objects. It contains full information of the objects in its own domain and partial information of the objects in other domains. Universal Group membership information will be stored in global catalog servers and replicate to all GCs in the forest. What is Active Directory and what is the use of it Active directory is a directory service, which maintains the relationship between resources and enabling them to work together. Because of AD hierarchal structure windows 2000 is more scalable, reliable. Active directory is derived from X.500 standards where information is stored is hierarchal tree like structure. Active directory depends on two Internet standards one is DNS and other is LDAP. Information in Active directory can be queried by using LDAP protocol what is the physical and logical structure of AD? Active directory physical structure is a hierarchal structure which fallows ForestsTrees DomainsChild DomainsGrand Childetc

Active directory is logically divided into 3 partitions 1.Configuration partition 2. Schema Partition 3. Domain partition 4. Application Partition (only in windows 2003 not available in windows 2000) Out of these Configuration, Schema partitions can be replicated between the domain controllers in the in the entire forest. Whereas Domain partition can be replicated between the domain controllers in the same domain What is the process of user authentication (Kerberos V5) in windows 2000? After giving logon credentials an encryption key will be generated which is used to encrypt the time stamp of the client machine. User name and encrypted timestamp information will be provided to domain controller for authentication. Then Domain controller based on the password information stored in AD for that user it decrypts the encrypted time stamp information. If produces time stamp matches to its time stamp. It will provide logon session key and Ticket granting ticket to client in an encryption format. Again client decrypts and if produced time stamp information is matching then it will use logon session key to logon to the domain. Ticket granting ticket will be used to generate service granting ticket when accessing network resources What are the port numbers for Kerberos, LDAP and Global Catalog? Kerberos 88, LDAP 389, Global Catalog 3268 what is the use of LDAP (X.500 standard?) LDAP is a directory access protocol, which is used to exchange directory information from server to clients or from server to servers what are the problems that are generally come across DHCP? Scope is full with IP addresses no IPs available for new machines If scope options are not configured properly e.g. default gateway Incorrect creation of scopes etc What is the role responsible for time synchronization? PDC Emulator is responsible for time synchronization. Time synchronization is important because Kerberos authentication depends on time stamp information what is TTL & how to set TTL time in DNS? TTL is Time to live setting used for the amount of time that the record should remain in cache when name resolution happened. We can set TTL in SOA (start of authority record) of DNS How to take DNS and WINS, DHCP backup %System root%/system32/dns %System root%/system32/WINS

%System root%/system32/DHCP What is recovery console Recovery console is a utility used to recover the system when it is not booting properly or not at all booting. We can perform fallowing operations from recovery console We can copy, rename, or replace operating system files and folders Enable or disable service or device startup the next time that start computer Repair the file system boot sector or the Master Boot Record Create and format partitions on drives What is DFS & its usage DFS is a distributed file system used to provide common environment for users to access files and folders even when they are shared in different servers physically. There are two types of DFS domain DFS and Stand alone DFS. We cannot provide redundancy for stand alone DFS in case of failure. Domain DFS is used in a domain environment which can be accessed by /domain name/root1 (root 1 is DFS root name). Stand alone DFS can be used in workgroup environment which can be accessed through /server name/root1 (root 1 is DFS root name). Both the cases we need to create DFS root ( Which appears like a shared folder for end users) and DFS links ( A logical link which is pointing to the server where the folder is physically shared) The maximum number of Dfs roots per server is 1. The maximum numbers of Dfs root replicas are 31. The maximum number of Dfs roots per domain is unlimited. The maximum number of Dfs links or shared folders in a Dfs root is 1,000 What is RIS and what are its requirements RIS is a remote installation service, which is used to install operation system remotely. Client requirements PXE DHCP-based boot ROM version 1.00 or later NIC, or a network adapter that is supported by the RIS boot disk. Should meet minimum operating system requirements Software Requirements Below network services must be active on RIS server or any server in the network Domain Name System (DNS Service) Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Active directory Directory service How many root replicas can be created in DFS? 31 What is the difference between Domain DFS and Standalone DFS? Refer question 17.

High Level Can we establish trust relationship between two forests? In Windows 2000 it is not possible. In Windows 2003 it is possible What is FSMO Roles Flexible single master operation (FSMO) roles are Domain Naming Master Schema Master PDC Emulator Infrastructure Master RID Master Brief all the FSMO Roles Windows 2000/2003 Multi-Master Model A multi-master enabled database, such as the Active Directory, provides the flexibility of allowing changes to occur at any DC in the enterprise, but it also introduces the possibility of conflicts that can potentially lead to problems once the data is replicated to the rest of the enterprise. One way Windows 2000/2003 deals with conflicting updates is by having a conflict resolution algorithm handle discrepancies in values by resolving to the DC to which changes were written last (that is, "the last writer wins"), while discarding the changes in all other DCs. Although this resolution method may be acceptable in some cases, there are times when conflicts are just too difficult to resolve using the "last writer wins" approach. In such cases, it is best to prevent the conflict from occurring rather than to try to resolve it after the fact. For certain types of changes, Windows 2000/2003 incorporates methods to prevent conflicting Active Directory updates from occurring. Windows 2000/2003 Single-Master Model To prevent conflicting updates in Windows 2000/2003, the Active Directory performs updates to certain objects in a single-master fashion. In a single-master model, only one DC in the entire directory is allowed to process updates. This is similar to the role given to a primary domain controller (PDC) in earlier versions of Windows (such as Microsoft Windows NT 4.0), in which the PDC is responsible for processing all updates in a given domain. In a forest, there are five FSMO roles that are assigned to one or more domain controllers. The five FSMO roles are: Schema Master: The schema master domain controller controls all updates and modifications to the schema. Once the Schema update is complete, it is replicated from the schema master to all other DCs in the

directory. To update the schema of a forest, you must have access to the schema master. There can be only one schema master in the whole forest. Domain naming master: The domain naming master domain controller controls the addition or removal of domains in the forest. This DC is the only one that can add or remove a domain from the directory. It can also add or remove cross references to domains in external directories. There can be only one domain naming master in the whole forest. Infrastructure Master: When an object in one domain is referenced by another object in another domain, it represents the reference by the GUID, the SID (for references to security principals), and the DN of the object being referenced. The infrastructure FSMO role holder is the DC responsible for updating an object's SID and distinguished name in a cross-domain object reference. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the infrastructure master in each domain. Note: The Infrastructure Master (IM) role should be held by a domain controller that is not a Global Catalog server (GC). If the Infrastructure Master runs on a Global Catalog server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a Global Catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. As a result, cross-domain object references in that domain will not be updated and a warning to that effect will be logged on that DC's event log. If all the domain controllers in a domain also host the global catalog, all the domain controllers have the current data, and it is not important which domain controller holds the infrastructure master role. Relative ID (RID) Master: The RID master is responsible for processing RID pool requests from all domain controllers in a particular domain. When a DC creates a security principal object such as a user or group, it attaches a unique Security ID (SID) to the object. This SID consists of a domain SID (the same for all SIDs created in a domain), and a relative ID (RID) that is unique for each security principal SID created in a domain. Each DC in a domain is allocated a pool of RIDs that it is allowed to assign to the security principals it creates. When a DC's allocated RID pool falls below a threshold, that DC issues a request for additional RIDs to the domain's RID master. The domain RID master responds to the request by retrieving RIDs from the domain's unallocated RID pool and assigns them to the pool of the requesting DC. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the RID master in the domain. PDC Emulator: The PDC emulator is necessary to synchronize time in an enterprise. Windows 2000/2003 includes the W32Time (Windows Time) time service that is required by the Kerberos authentication protocol. All Windows 2000/2003-based computers within an enterprise use a common time. The purpose of the time service is to ensure that the Windows Time service uses a hierarchical relationship that controls authority and does not permit loops to ensure appropriate

common time usage. The PDC emulator of a domain is authoritative for the domain. The PDC emulator at the root of the forest becomes authoritative for the enterprise, and should be configured to gather the time from an external source. All PDC FSMO role holders follow the hierarchy of domains in the selection of their in-bound time partner. In a Windows 2000/2003 domain, the PDC emulator role holder retains the following functions: Password changes performed by other DCs in the domain are replicated preferentially to the PDC emulator. Authentication failures that occur at a given DC in a domain because of an incorrect password are forwarded to the PDC emulator before a bad password failure message is reported to the user. Account lockout is processed on the PDC emulator. Editing or creation of Group Policy Objects (GPO) is always done from the GPO copy found in the PDC Emulator's SYSVOL share, unless configured not to do so by the administrator. The PDC emulator performs all of the functionality that a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Serverbased PDC or earlier PDC performs for Windows NT 4.0-based or earlier clients. This part of the PDC emulator role becomes unnecessary when all workstations, member servers, and domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or earlier are all upgraded to Windows 2000/2003. The PDC emulator still performs the other functions as described in a Windows 2000/2003 environment. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the PDC emulator master in each domain in the forest. How to manually configure FSMO Roles to separate DCs How can I determine who are the current FSMO Roles holders in my domain/forest? Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domains utilize a Single Operation Master method called FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation), as described in Understanding FSMO Roles in Active Directory. The five FSMO roles are: Schema master - Forest-wide and one per forest. Domain naming master - Forest-wide and one per forest. RID master - Domain-specific and one for each domain. PDC - PDC Emulator is domain-specific and one for each domain.

 Infrastructure master - Domain-specific and one for each domain. In most cases an administrator can keep the FSMO role holders (all 5 of them) in the same spot (or actually, on the same DC) as has been configured by the Active Directory installation process. However, there are scenarios where an administrator would want to move one or more of the FSMO roles from the default holder DC to a different DC. The transferring method is described in the Transferring FSMO Roles article, while seizing the roles from a non-operational DC to a different DC is described in the Seizing FSMO Roles article. In order to better understand your AD infrastructure and to know the added value that each DC might possess, an AD administrator must have the exact knowledge of which one of the existing DCs is holding a FSMO role, and what role it holds. With that knowledge in hand, the administrator can make better arrangements in case of a scheduled shut-down of any given DC, and better prepare him or herself in case of a non-scheduled cease of operation from one of the DCs. How to find out which DC is holding which FSMO role? Well, one can accomplish this task by many means. This article will list a few of the available methods. Method #1: Know the default settings The FSMO roles were assigned to one or more DCs during the DCPROMO process. The following table summarizes the FSMO default locations: FSMO Role Number of DCs holding this role Original DC holding the FSMO role Schema One per forest The first DC in the first domain in the forest (i.e. the Forest Root Domain) Domain Naming One per forest RID One per domain The first DC in a domain (any domain, including the Forest Root Domain, any Tree Root Domain, or any Child Domain) PDC Emulator One per domain Infrastructure One per domain Method #2: Use the GUI The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of some of the AD snap-ins. Use this table to see which tool can be used for what FSMO role: FSMO Role Which snap-in should I use? Schema Schema snap-in Domain Naming AD Domains and Trusts snap-in RID AD Users and Computers snap-in PDC Emulator Infrastructure

Finding the RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Masters via GUI To find out who currently holds the Domain-Specific RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Master FSMO Roles: 1. Open the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in from the Administrative Tools folder. 2. Right-click the Active Directory Users and Computers icon again and press Operation Masters. 3. Select the appropriate tab for the role you wish to view. 4. When you're done click close. Finding the Domain Naming Master via GUI To find out who currently holds the Domain Naming Master Role: 1. Open the Active Directory Domains and Trusts snap-in from the Administrative Tools folder. 2. Right-click the Active Directory Domains and Trusts icon again and press Operation Masters. 3. When you're done click close. Finding the Schema Master via GUI To find out who currently holds the Schema Master Role: 1. Register the Schmmgmt.dll library by pressing Start > RUN and typing: 2. Press OK. You should receive a success confirmation. 3. From the Run command open an MMC Console by typing MMC. 4. On the Console menu, press Add/Remove Snap-in. 5. Press Add. Select Active Directory Schema. 6. Press Add and press Close. Press OK. 7. Click the Active Directory Schema icon. After it loads right-click it and press Operation Masters. 8. Press the Close button. Method #3: Use the Ntdsutil command The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of the Ntdsutil command. Caution: Using the Ntdsutil utility incorrectly may result in partial or complete loss of Active Directory functionality. 1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type Ntdsutil in the Open box, and then click OK. 2. Type roles, and then press ENTER. Note: To see a list of available commands at any of the prompts in the Ntdsutil tool, type ?, and then press ENTER. 3. Type connections, and then press ENTER. 4. Type connect to server , where is the name of the server you want to use, and then press

ENTER. 5. At the server connections: prompt, type q, and then press ENTER again. 6. At the FSMO maintenance: prompt, type Select operation target, and then press ENTER again. At the select operation target: prompt, type List roles for connected server, and then press ENTER again. select operation target: List roles for connected server Server "server100" knows about 5 roles Schema - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=C onfiguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net Domain - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=C onfiguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net PDC - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Conf iguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net RID - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Conf iguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net Infrastructure - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Si tes,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net select operation target: 8. Type q 3 times to exit the Ntdsutil prompt. Note: You can download THIS nice batch file that will do all this for you (1kb). Another Note: Microsoft has a nice tool called Dumpfsmos.cmd, found in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit (and can be downloaded here: Download Free Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tools). This tool is basically a one-click Ntdsutil script that performs the same operation described

above. Method #4: Use the Netdom command The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of the Netdom command. Netdom.exe is a part of the Windows 2000/XP/2003 Support Tools. You must either download it separately (from here Download Free Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tools) or by obtaining the correct Support Tools pack for your operating system. The Support Tools pack can be found in the \Support\Tools folder on your installation CD (or you can Download Windows 2000 SP4 Support Tools, Download Windows XP SP1 Deploy Tools). 1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type CMD in the Open box, and then click OK. 2. In the Command Prompt window, type netdom query /domain: fsmo (where is the name of YOUR domain). Close the CMD window. Note: You can download THIS nice batch file that will do all this for you (1kb). Method #5: Use the Replmon tool The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of the Netdom command. Just like Netdom, Replmon.exe is a part of the Windows 2000/XP/2003 Support Tools. Replmon can be used for a wide verity of tasks, mostly with those that are related with AD replication. But Replmon can also provide valuable information about the AD, about any DC, and also about other objects and settings, such as GPOs and FSMO roles. Install the package before attempting to use the tool. 1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type REPLMON in the Open box, and then click OK. 2. Right-click Monitored servers and select Add Monitored Server. 3. In the Add Server to Monitor window, select the Search the Directory for the server to add. Make sure your AD domain name is listed in the drop-down list. 4. In the site list select your site, expand it, and click to select the server you want to query. Click Finish. 5. Right-click the server that is now listed in the left-pane, and select Properties. 6. Click on the FSMO Roles tab and read the results. 7. Click Ok when you're done. How can I forcibly transfer (seize) some or all of the FSMO Roles from one DC to another? Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domains utilize a Single Operation Master method called FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation), as described in Understanding FSMO Roles in

Active Directory. The five FSMO roles are: Schema master - Forest-wide and one per forest. Domain naming master - Forest-wide and one per forest. RID master - Domain-specific and one for each domain. PDC - PDC Emulator is domain-specific and one for each domain. Infrastructure master - Domain-specific and one for each domain. In most cases an administrator can keep the FSMO role holders (all 5 of them) in the same spot (or actually, on the same DC) as has been configured by the Active Directory installation process. However, there are scenarios where an administrator would want to move one or more of the FSMO roles from the default holder DC to a different DC. Moving the FSMO roles while both the original FSMO role holder and the future FSMO role holder are online and operational is called Transferring, and is described in the Transferring FSMO Roles article. However, when the original FSMO role holder went offline or became non operational for a long period of time, the administrator might consider moving the FSMO role from the original, nonoperational holder, to a different DC. The process of moving the FSMO role from a nonoperational role holder to a different DC is called Seizing, and is described in this article. If a DC holding a FSMO role fails, the best thing to do is to try and get the server online again. Since none of the FSMO roles are immediately critical (well, almost none, the loss of the PDC Emulator FSMO role might become a problem unless you fix it in a reasonable amount of time), so it is not a problem to them to be unavailable for hours or even days. If a DC becomes unreliable, try to get it back on line, and transfer the FSMO roles to a reliable computer. Administrators should use extreme caution in seizing FSMO roles. This operation, in most cases, should be performed only if the original FSMO role owner will not be brought back into the environment. Only seize a FSMO role if absolutely necessary when the original role holder is not connected to the network. What will happen if you do not perform the seize in time? This table has the info: FSMO Role Loss implications Schema The schema cannot be extended. However, in the short term no one will notice a missing Schema Master unless you plan a schema upgrade during that time. Domain Naming Unless you are going to run DCPROMO, then you will not miss this FSMO role. RID Chances are good that the existing DCs will have enough unused RIDs to last some time,

unless you're building hundreds of users or computer object per week. PDC Emulator Will be missed soon. NT 4.0 BDCs will not be able to replicate, there will be no time synchronization in the domain, you will probably not be able to change or troubleshoot group policies and password changes will become a problem. Infrastructure Group memberships may be incomplete. If you only have one domain, then there will be no impact. Important: If the RID, Schema, or Domain Naming FSMOs are seized, then the original domain controller must not be activated in the forest again. It is necessary to reinstall Windows if these servers are to be used again. The following table summarizes the FSMO seizing restrictions: FSMO Role Restrictions Schema Original must be reinstalled Domain Naming RID PDC Emulator Can transfer back to original Infrastructure Another consideration before performing the seize operation is the administrator's group membership, as this table lists: FSMO Role Administrator must be a member of Schema Schema Admins Domain Naming Enterprise Admins RID Domain Admins PDC Emulator Infrastructure To seize the FSMO roles by using Ntdsutil, follow these steps: Caution: Using the Ntdsutil utility incorrectly may result in partial or complete loss of Active Directory functionality. 1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type Ntdsutil in the Open box, and then click OK. 2. Type roles, and then press ENTER. Note: To see a list of available commands at any of the prompts in the Ntdsutil tool, type ?, and then press ENTER. 3. Type connections, and then press ENTER. 4. Type connect to server , where is the name of the server you want to use, and then press ENTER. 5. At the server connections: prompt, type q, and then press ENTER again.

6. Type seize , where is the role you want to seize. For example, to seize the RID Master role, you would type seize rid master: Options are: 7. You will receive a warning window asking if you want to perform the seize. Click on Yes. fsmo maintenance: Seize infrastructure master Attempting safe transfer of infrastructure FSMO before seizure. ldap_modify_sW error 0x34(52 (Unavailable). Ldap extended error message is 000020AF: SvcErr: DSID-03210300, problem 5002 (UNAVAILABLE) data 1722 Win32 error returned is 0x20af(The requested FSMO operation failed. The current FSMO holde r could not be contacted.) ) Depending on the error code this may indicate a connection, ldap, or role transfer error. Transfer of infrastructure FSMO failed, proceeding with seizure ... Server "server100" knows about 5 roles Schema - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER200,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=netDomain - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net PDC - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net RID - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER200,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net Infrastructure - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net fsmo maintenance: Note: All five roles need to be in the forest. If the first domain controller is out of the forest then seize all roles. Determine which roles are to be on which remaining domain controllers so that all five roles are not on only one server. 8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you've seized all the required FSMO roles. 9. After you seize or transfer the roles, type q, and then press ENTER until you quit the Ntdsutil tool. Note: Do not put the Infrastructure Master (IM) role on the same domain controller as the Global Catalog server. If the Infrastructure Master runs on a GC server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is

because a GC server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. What is the difference between authoritative and non-authoritative restore In authoritative restore, Objects that are restored will be replicated to all domain controllers in the domain. This can be used specifically when the entire OU is disturbed in all domain controllers or specifically restore a single object, which is disturbed in all DCs In non-authoritative restore, Restored directory information will be updated by other domain controllers based on the latest modification time. What is Active Directory De-fragmentation? De-fragmentation of AD means separating used space and empty space created by deleted objects and reduces directory size (only in offline De-fragmentation) Difference between online and offline de-fragmentation The size of NTDS.DIT will often be different sizes across the domain controllers in a domain. Remember that Active Directory is a multi-master independent model where updates are occurring in each of the domain controllers with the changes being replicated over time to the other domain controllers. The changed data is replicated between domain controllers, not the database, so there is no guarantee that the files are going to be the same size across all domain controllers. Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 servers running Directory Services (DS) perform a directory online defragmentation every 12 hours by default as part of the garbage-collection process. This defragmentation only moves data around the database file (NTDS.DIT) and doesnt reduce the files size - the database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted. Active Directory routinely performs online database defragmentation, but this is limited to the disposal of tombstoned objects. The database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted (or online). An NTDS.DIT file that has been defragmented offline (compacted), can be much smaller than the NTDS.DIT file on its peers. However, defragmenting the NTDS.DIT file isnt something you should really need to do. Normally, the database self-tunes and automatically tombstoning the records then sweeping them away when the tombstone lifetime has passed to make that space available for additional records. Defragging the NTDS.DIT file probably wont help your AD queries go any faster in the long run. So why defrag it in the first place?

One reason you might want to defrag your NTDS.DIT file is to save space, for example if you deleted a large number of records at one time. To create a new, smaller NTDS.DIT file and to enable offline defragmentation, perform the following steps: Back up Active Directory (AD). Reboot the server, select the OS option, and press F8 for advanced options. Select the Directory Services Restore Mode option, and press Enter. Press Enter again to start the OS. W2K will start in safe mode, with no DS running. Use the local SAMs administrator account and password to log on. Youll see a dialog box that says youre in safe mode. Click OK. From the Start menu, select Run and type cmd.exe In the command window, youll see the following text. (Enter the commands in bold.) C:\> ntdsutil ntdsutil: files file maintenance: info .... file maintenance:compact to c:\temp Youll see the defragmentation process. If the process was successful, enter quit to return to the command prompt. Then, replace the old NTDS.DIT file with the new, compressed version. (Enter the commands in bold.) C:\> copy c:\temp\ntds.dit %systemroot%\ntds\ntds.dit Restart the computer, and boot as normal. What is tombstone period Tombstones are nothing but objects marked for deletion. After deleting an object in AD the objects will not be deleted permanently. It will be remain 60 days by default (which can be configurable) it adds an entry as marked for deletion on the object and replicates to all DCs. After 60 days object will be deleted permanently from all Dcs. What is white space and Garbage Collection? refer question 7 What are the monitoring tools used for Server and Network Heath. How to define alert mechanism Spot Light , SNMP Need to enable . How to deploy the patches and what are the softwares used for this process Using SUS (Software update services) server we can deploy patches to all clients in the network.

We need to configure an option called Synchronize with Microsoft software update server option and schedule time to synchronize in server. We need to approve new update based on the requirement. Then approved update will be deployed to clients We can configure clients by changing the registry manually or through Group policy by adding WUAU administrative template in group policy What is Clustering. Briefly define & explain it Clustering is a technology, which is used to provide High Availability for mission critical applications. We can configure cluster by installing MCS (Microsoft cluster service) component from Add remove programs, which can only available in Enterprise Edition and Data center edition. In Windows we can configure two types of clusters NLB (network load balancing) cluster for balancing load between servers. This cluster will not provide any high availability. Usually preferable at edge servers like web or proxy. Server Cluster: This provides High availability by configuring active-active or active-passive cluster. In 2 node active-passive cluster one node will be active and one node will be stand by. When active server fails the application will FAILOVER to stand by server automatically. When the original server backs we need to FAILBACK the application Quorum: A shared storage need to provide for all servers which keeps information about clustered application and session state and is useful in FAILOVER situation. This is very important if Quorum disk fails entire cluster will fails Heartbeat: Heartbeat is a private connectivity between the servers in the cluster, which is used to identify the status of other servers in cluster. How to configure SNMP SNMP can be configured by installing SNMP from Monitoring and Management tools from Add and Remove programs. For SNMP programs to communicate we need to configure common community name for those machines where SNMP programs (eg DELL OPEN MANAGER) running. This can be configured from services.msc--- SNMP service -- Security Is it possible to rename the Domain name & how? In Windows 2000 it is not possible. In windows 2003 it is possible. On Domain controller by going to MYCOMPUTER properties we can change. What is SOA Record SOA is a Start Of Authority record, which is a first record in DNS, which controls the startup behavior of DNS. We can configure TTL, refresh, and retry intervals in this record.

What is a Stub zone and what is the use of it. Stub zones are a new feature of DNS in Windows Server 2003 that can be used to streamline name resolution, especially in a split namespace scenario. They also help reduce the amount of DNS traffic on your network, making DNS more efficient especially over slow WAN links. What are the different types of partitions present in AD? Active directory is divided into three partitions Configuration Partitionreplicates entire forest Schema Partitionreplicates entire forest Domain Partitionreplicate only in domain Application Partition (Only in Windows 2003) What are the (two) services required for replication File Replication Service (FRS) Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC) Can we use a Linux DNS Sever in 2000 Domain? We can use, But the BIND version should be 8 or greater What is the difference between IIS Version 5 and IIS Version 6? Refer Question 1 What is ASR (Automated System Recovery) and how to implement it ASR is a two-part system; it includes ASR backup and ASR restore. The ASR Wizard, located in Backup, does the backup portion. The wizard backs up the system state, system services, and all the disks that are associated with the operating system components. ASR also creates a file that contains information about the backup, the disk configurations (including basic and dynamic volumes), and how to perform a restore. You can access the restore portion by pressing F2 when prompted in the text-mode portion of setup. ASR reads the disk configurations from the file that it creates. It restores all the disk signatures, volumes, and partitions on (at a minimum) the disks that you need to start the computer. ASR will try to restore all the disk configurations, but under some circumstances it might not be able to. ASR then installs a simple installation of Windows and automatically starts a restoration using the backup created by the ASR Wizard. What are the different levels that we can apply Group Policy We can apply group policy at SITE level---Domain Level---OU level What is Domain Policy, Domain controller policy, Local policy and Group policy Domain Policy will apply to all computers in the domain, because by default it will be associated with domain GPO, Where as Domain controller policy will be applied only on domain controller. By default domain controller security policy will be associated with domain controller GPO. Local policy will be applied to that particular machine only and effects to that computer only. What is the use of SYSVOL FOLDER?

Policies and scripts saved in SYSVOL folder will be replicated to all domain controllers in the domain. FRS (File replication service) is responsible for replicating all policies and scripts What is folder redirection? Folder Redirection is a User group policy. Once you create the group policy and link it to the appropriate folder object, an administrator can designate which folders to redirect and where To do this, the administrator needs to navigate to the following location in the Group Policy Object: User Configuration\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection In the Properties of the folder, you can choose Basic or Advanced folder redirection, and you can designate the server file system path to which the folder should be redirected. The %USERNAME% variable may be used as part of the redirection path, thus allowing the system to dynamically create a newly redirected folder for each user to whom the policy object applies. What different modes in windows 2003 (Mixed, native & intrim.etc) what are the domain and forest function levels in a Windows Server 2003-basedActive Directory? Functional levels are an extension of the mixed/native mode concept introduced in Windows 2000 to activate new Active Directory features after all the domain controllers in the domain or forest are running the Windows Server 2003 operating system. When a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 is installed and promoted to a domain controller, new Active Directory features are activated by the Windows Server 2003 operating system over its Windows 2000 counterparts. Additional Active Directory features are available when all domain controllers in a domain or forest are running Windows Server 2003 and the administrator activates the corresponding functional level in the domain or forest. To activate the new domain features, all domain controllers in the domain must be running Windows Server 2003. After this requirement is met, the administrator can raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003 (read Raise Domain Function Level in Windows Server 2003 Domains for more info). To activate new forest-wide features, all domain controllers in the forest must be running Windows Server 2003, and the current forest functional level must be at Windows 2000 native or Windows Server 2003 domain level. After this requirement is met, the administrator can raise the domain functional level (read Raise Forest Function Level in Windows Server 2003 Active Directory for more info). Note: Network clients can authenticate or access resources in the domain or forest without being affected by the Windows Server 2003 domain or forest functional levels. These levels only affect the way that domain controllers interact with each other.

Important Raising the domain and forest functional levels to Windows Server 2003 is a nonreversible task and prohibits the addition of Windows NT 4.0based or Windows 2000based domain controllers to the environment. Any existing Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000based domain controllers in the environment will no longer function. Before raising functional levels to take advantage of advanced Windows Server 2003 features, ensure that you will never need to install domain controllers running Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 in your environment. When the first Windows Server 2003based domain controller is deployed in a domain or forest, a set of default Active Directory features becomes available. The following table summarizes the Active Directory features that are available by default on any domain controller running Windows Server 2003: Feature Functionality Multiple selection of user objects Allows you to modify common attributes of multiple user objects at one time. Drag and drop functionality Allows you to move Active Directory objects from container to container by dragging one or more objects to a location in the domain hierarchy. You can also add objects to group membership lists by dragging one or more objects (including other group objects) to the target group. Efficient search capabilities Search functionality is object-oriented and provides an efficient search that minimizes network traffic associated with browsing objects. Saved queries Allows you to save commonly used search parameters for reuse in Active Directory Users and Computers Active Directory command-line tools Allows you to run new directory service commands for administration scenarios. InetOrgPerson class the inetOrgPerson class has been added to the base schema as a security principal and can be used in the same manner as the user class. Application directory partitions Allows you to configure the replication scope for applicationspecific data among domain controllers. For example, you can control the replication scope of Domain Name System (DNS) zone data stored in Active Directory so that only specific domain controllers in the forest participate in DNS zone replication. Ability to add additional domain controllers by using backup media Reduces the time it takes to add an additional domain controller in an existing domain by using backup media. Universal group membership caching Prevents the need to locate a global catalog across a wide area network (WAN) when logging on by storing universal group membership information on an authenticating domain controller. Secure Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) traffic Active Directory administrative tools sign and encrypt all LDAP traffic by default. Signing LDAP traffic guarantees that the packaged data comes from a known source and that it has not been tampered with. Partial synchronization of the global catalog Provides improved replication of the global catalog when schema changes add attributes to the global catalog partial attribute set. Only the new attributes are replicated, not the entire global catalog. Active Directory quotas Quotas can be specified in Active Directory to control the number of

objects a user, group, or computer can own in a given directory partition. Members of the Domain Administrators and Enterprise Administrators groups are exempt from quotas. When the first Windows Server 2003based domain controller is deployed in a domain or forest, the domain or forest operates by default at the lowest functional level that is possible in that environment. This allows you to take advantage of the default Active Directory features while running versions of Windows earlier than Windows Server 2003. When you raise the functional level of a domain or forest, a set of advanced features becomes available. For example, the Windows Server 2003 interim forest functional level supports more features than the Windows 2000 forest functional level, but fewer features than the Windows Server 2003 forest functional level supports. Windows Server 2003 is the highest functional level that is available for a domain or forest. The Windows Server 2003 functional level supports the most advanced Active Directory features; however, only Windows Server 2003 domain controllers can operate in that domain or forest. If you raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003, you cannot introduce any domain controllers that are running versions of Windows earlier than Windows Server 2003 into that domain. This applies to the forest functional level as well. Domain Functional Level Domain functionality activates features that affect the whole domain and that domain only. The four domain functional levels, their corresponding features, and supported domain controllers are as follows: Windows 2000 mixed (Default) Supported domain controllers: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 Activated features: local and global groups, global catalog support Windows 2000 native Supported domain controllers: Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 Activated features: group nesting, universal groups, SidHistory, converting groups between security groups and distribution groups, you can raise domain levels by increasing the forest level settings Windows Server 2003 interim Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows Server 2003 Supported features: There are no domain-wide features activated at this level. All domains in a forest are automatically raised to this level when the forest level increases to interim. This mode is only used when you upgrade domain controllers in Windows NT 4.0 domains to Windows Server 2003 domain controllers. Windows Server 2003 Supported domain controllers: Windows Server 2003 Supported features: domain controller rename, logon timestamp attribute updated and replicated. User password support on the InetOrgPerson objectClass. Constrained delegation,

you can redirect the Users and Computers containers. Domains that are upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 or created by the promotion of a Windows Server 2003-based computer operate at the Windows 2000 mixed functional level. Windows 2000 domains maintain their current domain functional level when Windows 2000 domain controllers are upgraded to the Windows Server 2003 operating system. You can raise the domain functional level to either Windows 2000 native or Windows Server 2003. After the domain functional level is raised, domain controllers that are running earlier operating systems cannot be introduced into the domain. For example, if you raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003, domain controllers that are running Windows 2000 Server cannot be added to that domain. The following describes the domain functional level and the domain-wide features that are activated for that level. Note that with each successive level increase, the feature set of the previous level is included. Forest Functional Level Forest functionality activates features across all the domains in your forest. Three forest functional levels, the corresponding features, and their supported domain controllers are listed below. Windows 2000 (default) Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 New features: Partial list includes universal group caching, application partitions, install from media, quotas, rapid global catalog demotion, Single Instance Store (SIS) for System Access Control Lists (SACL) in the Jet Database Engine, Improved topology generation event logging. No global catalog full sync when attributes are added to the PAS Windows Server 2003 domain controller assumes the Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG) role. Windows Server 2003 interim Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows Server 2003. See the "Upgrade from a Windows NT 4.0 Domain" section of this article. Activated features: Windows 2000 features plus Efficient Group Member Replication using Linked Value Replication, Improved Replication Topology Generation. ISTG Aliveness no longer replicated. Attributes added to the global catalog. ms-DS-Trust-Forest-Trust-Info. TrustDirection, Trust-Attributes, Trust-Type, Trust-Partner, Security-Identifier, ms-DS-Entry-TimeTo-Die, Message Queuing-Secured-Source, Message Queuing-Multicast-Address, PrintMemory, Print-Rate, Print-Rate-Unit Windows Server 2003

 Supported domain controllers: Windows Server 2003 Activated features: all features in Interim Level, Defunct schema objects, Cross Forest Trust, Domain Rename, Dynamic auxiliary classes, InetOrgPerson objectClass change, Application Groups, 15-second intrasite replication frequency for Windows Server 2003 domain controllers upgraded from Windows 2000 After the forest functional level is raised, domain controllers that are running earlier operating systems cannot be introduced into the forest. For example, if you raise forest functional levels to Windows Server 2003, domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server cannot be added to the forest. Different Active Directory features are available at different functional levels. Raising domain and forest functional levels is required to enable certain new features as domain controllers are upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003 Domain Functional Levels: Windows 2000 Mixed mode, Windows 2000 Native mode, Windows server 2003 and Windows server 2003 interim ( Only available when upgrades directly from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2003) Forest Functional Levels: Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Ipsec usage and difference window 2000 & 2003. Microsoft doesnt recommend Internet Protocol security (IPSec) network address translation (NAT) traversal (NAT-T) for Windows deployments that include VPN servers and that are located behind network address translators. When a server is behind a network address translator, and the server uses IPSec NAT-T, unintended side effects may occur because of the way that network address translators translate network traffic If you put a server behind a network address translator, you may experience connection problems because clients that connect to the server over the Internet require a public IP address. To reach servers that are located behind network address translators from the Internet, static mappings must be configured on the network address translator. For example, to reach a Windows Server 2003-based computer that is behind a network address translator from the Internet, configure the network address translator with the following static network address translator mappings: Public IP address/UDP port 500 to the server's private IP address/UDP port 500. Public IP address/UDP port 4500 to the server's private IP address/UDP port 4500. These mappings are required so that all Internet Key Exchange (IKE) and IPSec NAT-T traffic that is sent to the public address of the network address translator is automatically translated and forwarded to the Windows Server 2003-based computer How to create application partition windows 2003 and its usage?

An application directory partition is a directory partition that is replicated only to specific domain controllers. A domain controller that participates in the replication of a particular application directory partition hosts a replica of that partition. Only domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 can host a replica of an application directory partition. Applications and services can use application directory partitions to store application-specific data. Application directory partitions can contain any type of object, except security principals. TAPI is an example of a service that stores its application-specific data in an application directory partition. Application directory partitions are usually created by the applications that will use them to store and replicate data. For testing and troubleshooting purposes, members of the Enterprise Admins group can manually create or manage application directory partitions using the Ntdsutil command-line tool. Is it possible to do implicit transitive forest to forest trust relationship in windows 2003? Implicit Transitive trust will not be possible in windows 2003. Between forests we can create explicit trust Two-way trust One-way: incoming One-way: Outgoing What is universal group membership cache in windows 2003? Information is stored locally once this option is enabled and a user attempts to log on for the first time. The domain controller obtains the universal group membership for that user from a global catalog. Once the universal group membership information is obtained, it is cached on the domain controller for that site indefinitely and is periodically refreshed. The next time that user attempts to log on, the authenticating domain controller running Windows Server 2003 will obtain the universal group membership information from its local cache without the need to contact a global catalog. By default, the universal group membership information contained in the cache of each domain controller will be refreshed every 8 hours. GPMC & RSOP in windows 2003? GPMC is tool which will be used for managing group policies and will display information like how many policies applied, on which OUs the policies applied, What are the settings enabled in each policy, Who are the users effecting by these polices, who is managing these policies. GPMC will display all the above information.

RSoP provides details about all policy settings that are configured by an Administrator, including Administrative Templates, Folder Redirection, Internet Explorer Maintenance, Security Settings, Scripts, and Group Policy Software Installation. When policies are applied on multiple levels (for example, site, domain, domain controller, and organizational unit), the results can conflict. RSoP can help you determine a set of applied policies and their precedence (the order in which policies are applied). Assign & Publish the applications in GP & how? Through Group policy you can Assign and Publish the applications by creating .msi package for that application With Assign option you can apply policy for both user and computer. If it is applied to computer then the policy will apply to user who logs on to that computer. If it is applied on user it will apply where ever he logs on to the domain. It will be appear in Start menuPrograms. Once user click the shortcut or open any document having that extension then the application install into the local machine. If any application program files missing it will automatically repair. With Publish option you can apply only on users. It will not install automatically when any application program files are corrupted or deleted. DFS in windows 2003? Refer Question 17 on level 2 How to use recovery console? The Windows 2000 Recovery Console is a command-line console that you can start from the Windows 2000 Setup program. Using the Recovery Console, you can start and stop services, format drives, read and write data on a local drive (including drives formatted to use NTFS), and perform many other administrative tasks. The Recovery Console is particularly useful if you need to repair your system by copying a file from a floppy disk or CD-ROM to your hard drive, or if you need to reconfigure a service that is preventing your computer from starting properly. Because the Recovery Console is quite powerful, it should only be used by advanced users who have a thorough knowledge of Windows 2000. In addition, you must be an administrator to use the Recovery Console. There are two ways to start the Recovery Console: If you are unable to start your computer, you can run the Recovery Console from your Windows 2000 Setup disks or from the Windows 2000 Professional CD (if you can start your computer from your CD-ROM drive). As an alternative, you can install the Recovery Console on your computer to make it available in case you are unable to restart Windows 2000. You can then select the Recovery Console option from the list of available operating systems PPTP protocol for VPN in windows 2003?

Point-to-Point-Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is a networking technology that supports multiprotocol virtual private networks (VPN), enableing remote users to access corporate networks securely across the Microsoft Windows NT Workstation, Windows 95, and Windows 98 operating systems and other point-to-point protocol (PPP)-enabled systems to dial into a local Internet service provider to connect securely to their corporate network through the Internet Netdom.exe is domain management tool to rename domain controller Posted by Shanu at 6:46 AM Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Security questions By admin | December 7, 2003 1. Whats the difference between local, global and universal groups? Domain local groups assign access permissions to global domain groups for local domain resources. Global groups provide access to resources in other trusted domains. Universal groups grant access to resources in all trusted domains. 2. I am trying to create a new universal user group. Why cant I? Universal groups are allowed only in native-mode Windows Server 2003 environments. Native mode requires that all domain controllers be promoted to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. 3. What is LSDOU? Its group policy inheritance model, where the policies are applied toLocal machines, Sites, Domains and Organizational Units. 4. Why doesnt LSDOU work under Windows NT? If the NTConfig.pol file exist, it has the highest priority among the numerous policies. 5. Where are group policies stored? %SystemRoot%System32\GroupPolicy 6. What is GPT and GPC? Group policy template and group policy container. 7. Where is GPT stored? %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL\sysvol\domainname\Policies\GUID 8. You change the group policies, and now the computer and user settings are in conflict. Which one has the highest priority? The computer settings take priority. 9. You want to set up remote installation procedure, but do not want the user to gain access over it. What do you do? gponame> User Configuration> Windows Settings > Remote Installation Services> Choice Options is your friend. 10. Whats contained in administrative template conf.adm? Microsoft NetMeeting policies 11. How can you restrict running certain applications on a machine? Via group policy, security settings for the group, then Software Restriction Policies. 12. You need to automatically install an app, but MSI file is not available. What do you do? A .zap text file can be used to add applications using the Software Installer, rather than the Windows Installer. 13. Whats the difference between Software Installer and Windows Installer? The former has fewer privileges and will probably require user intervention. Plus, it uses .zap files. 14. What can be restricted on Windows Server 2003 that wasnt there in previous products? Group Policy in Windows Server 2003 determines a users right to modify network and dial-up TCP/IP properties. Users may be selectively restricted from modifying their IP address and other network configuration parameters.

15. How frequently is the client policy refreshed? 90 minutes give or take. 16. Where is secedit? Its now gpupdate. 17. You want to create a new group policy but do not wish to inherit. Make sure you check Block inheritance among the options when creating the policy. 18. What is "tattooing" the Registry? The user can view and modify user preferences that are not stored in maintained portions of the Registry. If the group policy is removed or changed, the user preference will persist in the Registry. 19. How do you fight tattooing in NT/2000 installations? You cant. 20. How do you fight tattooing in 2003 installations? User Configuration - Administrative Templates - System - Group Policy - enable - Enforce Show Policies Only. 21. What does IntelliMirror do? It helps to reconcile desktop settings, applications, and stored files for users, particularly those who move between workstations or those who must periodically work offline. 22. Whats the major difference between FAT and NTFS on a local machine? FAT and FAT32 provide no security over locally logged-on users. Only native NTFS provides extensive permission control on both remote and local files. 23. How do FAT and NTFS differ in approach to user shares? They dont, both have support for sharing. 24. Explan the List Folder Contents permission on the folder in NTFS. Same as Read & Execute, but not inherited by files within a folder. However, newly created subfolders will inherit this permission. 25. I have a file to which the user has access, but he has no folder permission to read it. Can he access it? It is possible for a user to navigate to a file for which he does not have folder permission. This involves simply knowing the path of the file object. Even if the user cant drill down the file/folder tree using My Computer, he can still gain access to the file using the Universal Naming Convention (UNC). The best way to start would be to type the full path of a file into Run window. 26. For a user in several groups, are Allow permissions restrictive or permissive?Permissive, if at least one group has Allow permission for the file/folder, user will have the same permission. 27. For a user in several groups, are Deny permissions restrictive or permissive?Restrictive, if at least one group has Deny permission for the file/folder, user will be denied access, regardless of other group permissions. 28. What hidden shares exist on Windows Server 2003 installation? Admin$, Drive$, IPC$, NETLOGON, print$ and SYSVOL. 29. Whats the difference between standalone and fault-tolerant DFS (Distributed File System) installations? The standalone server stores the Dfs directory tree structure or topology locally. Thus, if a shared folder is inaccessible or if the Dfs root server is down, users are left with no link to the shared resources. A fault-tolerant root node stores the Dfs topology in the Active Directory, which is replicated to other domain controllers. Thus, redundant root nodes may include multiple connections to the same data residing in different shared folders. 30. Were using the DFS fault-tolerant installation, but cannot access it from a Win98 box. Use the UNC path, not client, only 2000 and 2003 clients can access Server 2003 fault-tolerant shares.

31. Where exactly do fault-tolerant DFS shares store information in Active Directory? In Partition Knowledge Table, which is then replicated to other domain controllers. 32. Can you use Start->Search with DFS shares? Yes. 33. What problems can you have with DFS installed? Two users opening the redundant copies of the file at the same time, with no file-locking involved in DFS, changing the contents and then saving. Only one file will be propagated through DFS. 34. I run Microsoft Cluster Server and cannot install fault-tolerant DFS. Yeah, you cant. Install a standalone one. 35. Is Kerberos encryption symmetric or asymmetric? Symmetric. 36. How does Windows 2003 Server try to prevent a middle-man attack on encrypted line? Time stamp is attached to the initial client request, encrypted with the shared key. 37. What hashing algorithms are used in Windows 2003 Server? RSA Data Securitys Message Digest 5 (MD5), produces a 128-bit hash, and the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1), produces a 160-bit hash. 38. What third-party certificate exchange protocols are used by Windows 2003 Server? Windows Server 2003 uses the industry standard PKCS-10 certificate request and PKCS-7 certificate response to exchange CA certificates with third-party certificate authorities. 39. Whats the number of permitted unsuccessful logons on Administrator account? Unlimited. Remember, though, that its the Administrator account, not any account thats part of the Administrators group. 40. If hashing is one-way function and Windows Server uses hashing for storing passwords, how is it possible to attack the password lists, specifically the ones using NTLMv1? A cracker would launch a dictionary attack by hashing every imaginable term used for password and then compare the hashes. 41. Whats the difference between guest accounts in Server 2003 and other editions? More restrictive in Windows Server 2003. 42. How many passwords by default are remembered when you check "Enforce Password History Remembered"? Users last 6 password 43. Technical Interview Questions Active Directory and Networking- Part I 44. Ratings: (23)|Views: 150,979|Likes: 1,863 45. Published by ajitskhot108 46. this Documents with help for IT system administrator Technical Interview Questions Active Directory and Networking Ajit khot... 47. See More 48. 49. What are administrative templates?Administrative Templates

50. Administrative templates, (or .adm files), enable administrators to control registry settingsusing Group Policy. These settings appear under the 51. Administrative Templates 52. folder forboth user configuration and computer configuration in the console tree of the Group PolicyObject Editor, and in HTML reports produced by GPMC.It is important to understand that .adm files are not the actual settings that are deployed toclient operating systems. The .adm file is simply a template file (implemented as text file withan .adm extension) that provides the friendly name for the setting and an explanation. Thistemplate file is used to populate the user interface. The settings that are deployed to clients arecontained in the registry.pol file inside the GPO. On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003,each registry setting contains a "Supported on" tag that indicates which operating systemversions support that policy setting. If a setting is specified and deployed to a client operatingsystem that does not support that setting, the settings are ignored. These .adm files are storedin two locations by default: inside GPOs, and in the %windir%\inf folder on the localcomputer.Windows includes a predefined set of Administrative template files that define the registrysettings that can be configured in a Group Policy object (GPO). The .adm files can be addedor removed from the Group Policy Object Editor by right-clicking 53. AdministrativeTemplates 54. and clicking 55. Add/Remove Templates 56. . Adding or removing .adm files does notaffect which policies are processed by the Group Policy engine. It only affects whether aspecific Administrative Template policy setting is displayed in the Group Policy ObjectEditor. For example, if you removed all the .adm files from the GPO via the 57. Add/RemoveTemplates 58. dialog box, no Administrative Template policy settings would be displayed underthe Administrative Templates node. This will not affect the policies already stored in theRegistry.pol file. 59. 60. AdministrativeTemplateDescription 61. System.adm System settingsInetres.adm Internet Explorer settingsWmplayer.adm Windo ws Media Player settings. This tool is not available onWindows XP 64-Bit Edition and the 64-bit versions of the WindowsServer 2003 family.Conf.adm NetMeeting settings. This tool is not available on Windows XPProfessi onal, 64-Bit Edition and the 64-bit versions of theWindows Server family.Wuau.adm Windows Update settings. 62. What's the difference between software publishing and assigning? 63. Because you can publish software for users, assign software to users, or assign software tocomputers, you can establish a workable combination of those three options to meet yoursoftware management goals. The following is a comparison of these methods. 64. Publishing software for users 65. Typically, after you publish a software package to users in a site, domain, or OU, the userscan use 66. Add or Remove Programs

67. to install the software. An exception is when you publishan application in a new GPO, and you must simultaneously link the GPO to the users in a site,domain, or OU. If you link a GPO and deploy the software at the same time, you must refreshthe Group Policy before the application appears in 68. Add or Remove Programs 69. . Additionally,the application can be installed by opening an associated document if the application isdeployed to do that (if 70. Auto-Install 71. is selected).The user can remove the software, and then later choose to reinstall it, by using 72. Add orRemove Programs 73. . 74. Assigning software to users 75. There are three methods for assigning software: assign to users on-demand, assign to users, orassign to computers. 76. Important 77. 78. 79. 80. Check software license agreements before you assign applications to users becauseassigning software can result in an application being installed on multiple computers.

81. 82. 83. Issues might occur, regardless of whether you use the policy setting option 84. Removethe application if it falls out of the scope of management. 85. 86. Note : for part II Exchange Server 87. Technical Interview Questions and answer will beupdate soon.

88. RegardsAjit Khot IT EngKentz Co Ltd.Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaEmail :ajitskhot@gmail.com Email: Ajit.khot@kentz.comwww.kentz.com

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