Tag Archives: gpo

Domain Controller, Microsoft

Fix: Missing Sysvol and Netlogon after domain controller promotion

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Many cases I found an issue with the newly promoted domain controller is missing the SYSVOL and NETLOGON shares. Most of the cases it would also be a new domain controller for a new forest. In most cases, you would need to update the flag as below.

Open Regedit
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters
Set SysVolReady from 0 to 1
Close Regedit

This will create the SYSVOL share. If the NETLOGON share is not created you would need to create the folder scripts in C:\Windows\SYSVOL\domain\. When this is done, restart the NETLOGON service.

This is the easy part. In some cases, although the NETLOGON and SYSVOL shares are working, no group policies or scripts are being replicated using the DFS or DFRS.

We can verify the replication by running the following command.

For /f %i IN ('dsquery server -o rdn') do @echo %i && @wmic /node:"%i" /namespace:\\root\microsoftdfs path dfsrreplicatedfolderinfo WHERE replicatedfoldername='SYSVOL share' get replicationgroupname,replicatedfoldername,state

The states should translate as below

0 = Uninitialized
1 = Initialized
2 = Initial Sync
3 = Auto Recovery
4 = Normal
5 = In Error

In my case, I have noticed that the newly promoted server was showing 2 and the main domain controller was showing “No Instance(s) Available” which is quite strange.

Here you would need to look into the original Active Directory server for any problems and you would see a warning on the DFS Replication under Applications with Event ID 2213 as below.

It says that the DFS Replication service stopped replication on volume C:. This occurs when a DFSR JET database is not shut down cleanly and Auto Recovery is disabled.

What we need to do here is from the event viewer take note of the volumeGUID and run the below command and replacing GUID-NUMBER with your GUID.

wmic /namespace:\\root\microsoftdfs path dfsrVolumeConfig where volumeGuid="GUID-NUMBER" call ResumeReplication

This will restart the replication and recreate the database. This can be seen with an event with ID 2214 saying The DFS Replication service successfully recovered from an unexpected shutdown on volume C:.This can occur if the service terminated abnormally (due to a power loss, for example) or an error occurred on the volume. No user action is required.

If you run the command to see the state of the replication you will see that the servers are all showing state 4 as below and the both Sysvol and Netlogon will be replicated.

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Azure, Microsoft

Fix: Azure RemoteApp GPO login scripts not working

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When setting up your template and publishing your apps, if you setup a Group Policy Object (GPO) for your users, this does not work. After some research and testing I found out that to solve the issue, you must do the following:

Add the Explorer application to the Published apps

Start by publishing the command line interface (cmd.exe). In the Publishingtab, select cmd, and then click Publish > Publish program using path.

Enter the name of the app and the path. For our purpose, use “File Explorer” as the name and “%SYSTEMDRIVE%\windows\explorer.exe” as the path.

In my case this worked, hope it does for you.

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Microsoft, Powershell

How to: Uninstall an application with Powershell using GPO

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Sometimes you would need to automate an uninstall of an application through Group Policies (GPO). This can be done by running a PowerShell script. Firstly create a PowerShell script as below:

$appplication = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Where-Object
{$_.Name -match "My Application Name"}
$application.Uninstall()

Save the file and create a new GPO and set the script to load by setting up the Computer Configuration/ Policies/ Windows Settings/ Scripts/ Startup.

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Microsoft, Powershell

How to: Set PowerShell execution policy to unrestricted using GPO

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Most often when you have to execute some PowerShell scripts through the GPO and you end up with an error on execution saying that the Execution Policy does not allow you to run un-signed script.

So you would need to create a new GPO to set the Execution Policy. Create a new  GPO and edit it.

Goto Computer Configuration/ Policies/ Administrative Templates/ Windows Components/ Windows PowerShell

Double-click on Turn on Script Execution
Click on Enabled
Select Allow All Scripts

Move the GPO onto the respective OU, wait until the refresh or simple run gpupdate /force on the computers.

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