By default ADLDS does not allow to reset password on users created in ADLDS repository over connection without SSL. As sometimes there is a need to build test environment with ADLDS quick, SSL is the last thing which anyone would care about, especially if main thing to test is script automating password resets.

So, for convenience of the developers ADLDS allows to disable requirements for SSL connection to reset passwords. How to disable that reuqirement? See below how it was done on server where ADLDS was installed on port 50389:

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By default password policy from Active Directory domain will impact ADLDS and users created in ADLDS instance. To prevent domain policies from enforcing password restrictions and rules on ADLDS users one simple setting has to be adjusted:

• ADAMDisablePasswordPolicies

Here is how it looks on computer which has ADLDS instance installed on port 50389:

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Background image on logon screen os common issue with pre-installed servers, for example from Dell. That makes accessing those systems via Remote Desktop painful and slow (it happenes that serer is shipped to location, racked and stacked, and then whole configuration take place remotely). By default background bitmap from logon screen is sitting in C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds, so you can put your own logon screen background or if you don’t want to have any (just system default) you can follow instructions below and remove background from logon screen.

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Often using VMware Workstation platform we need to quickly create new virtual machine. reasons for that might be different. For example additional machine for our Lab environment or just quick test without affecting other machines we have setup in our virtual environment.

Installing whole operating system with all applications we used to have in our setup might be time consuming process. That is why it is worth to consider creating and using templates to be able quickly generate virtual machines we need.

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ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) was predeccesor of ADLDS and Microsoft distributed it as additional download. Now in Windows Server 2008 R2 ADLDS (Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services) are built0in server role. ADLDS offers LDAP-based directory service which can be utilized by application LDAP-enabled. In addition to that ADLDS works as Windows-service and is non-operating-system service which allows multiple instances of ADLDS on same machine.

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