Disable Local User Accounts in Windows with GPO and PowerShell

Best security practices for Windows domain networks recommend disabling local user accounts on computers and servers in an Active Directory domain. Local users who have administrative permissions on a computer can be a weak point in the security of your network. You can use tools such as Windows LAPS (Local Administrator Password Solution) to set unique, complex passwords for local administrators, or you can use AD Group Policies to completely disable local administrator and user accounts.

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Fix: Unable to Join Computer to Active Directory Domain

A number of errors can occur when you try to join a Windows machine to an Active Directory domain. Most of them are fairly typical and can be fixed quite easily, as the cause of the problem is shown right there in the error window.

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How to Completely Uninstall Microsoft SQL Server?

In this article, we’re going to look at a number of ways that you can uninstall a Microsoft SQL Server instance on a Windows computer. This article applies to all supported versions: Microsoft SQL Server 2019/2017/2014/2012.

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Install and Configure NFS Client on Windows

The Network File System (NFS) client is not installed by default on Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012R2 and Windows 11/10 desktop versions. To install it, open the Server Manager and select Add Roles and Features -> Client for NFS.

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USB Devices Passthrough over IP Network on Windows with Usbipd-win

The inability to pass through a connected USB device from a Hyper-V host to a virtual machine is one of the major shortcomings of the Microsoft hypervisor. You can use the open-source project usbipd-win to solve this problem (https://github.com/dorssel/usbipd-win). The usbipd-win utility allows you to pass through (redirect USB device or key including HASP) over the network from a Windows host to any Hyper-V virtual machine, remote computer running Linux, Windows, or WSL2.

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How to Rename a Domain Controller in Active Directory?

If you try to rename an Active Directory domain controller the way you rename domain member computers/servers (by using the sysdm.cpl console or the Rename-Computer PowerShell cmdlet)), a warning will appear:

Domain controllers cannot be moved from one domain to another, they must first be demoted. Renaming this domain controller may cause it to become temporarily unavailable to users and computers. For information on renaming domain controllers, including alternate renaming methods, see Renaming a Domain Controller (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=177447). To continue renaming this domain controller, click OK.

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Setting Process CPU Affinity in Windows

By default, a running app in Windows can run on any of the available CPU cores. The operating system manages and distributes processes between cores. However, you can manually bind certain processes (applications) to processor cores in Windows using the Processor Affinity feature. Let’s see how to bind a program (process) to specific CPU cores in Windows.

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How to Remotely Logoff Users in Windows?

Several times I came across a situation where one of the users on a Windows Server host with an RDS (Remote Desktop Services) role ran an application that leaked and occupied all available RAM. It was impossible to connect to such a host via RDP remotely. To kill the leaked process, you need to remotely logoff this user.

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