How to connect to a SMB share in a Windows Server using an alias name

According to this Microsoft article when a client computer connects to a Microsoft Windows 2000-based computer or a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer by using an alias name, the client may receive the following error message:

System error 52 has occurred.
A duplicate name exists on the network.

This problem can occur when you try to connect to the server by using a CNAME alias that is created in the DNS zone. For example, this problem may occur with a command similar to the following sample command

net view \\alias.domain name.com

where alias is a CNAME record that is created for the server in the domain name.com zone. The server is not "listening" on the alias, and therefore is not accepting connections to that name.
To resolve this problem in Windows Server 2003, follow these steps:
   1. Create the CNAME record for the file server on the appropriate DNS server, if the CNAME record is not already present.
   2. Apply the following registry change to the file server. To do so, follow these steps:
         1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
         2. Locate and click the following key in the registry:
            HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
         3. On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:
            Value name: DisableStrictNameChecking
            Data type: REG_DWORD
            Radix: Decimal
            Value: 1
         4. Quit Registry Editor.
   3. Restart your computer.
You may also have to set the SPN (Service Principal Name) for the Alias Name:

setspn -a host/aliasname targetserver
setspn -a host/aliasname.contoso.com targetserver

The registry key that is mentioned is applicable only to SMB 1.0. To communicate over the SMB2.0 protocol, or CIFS (Common Internet File System), you do not have to set the registry key. SMB 2.0 allows for the functionality described in this article to work by default without additional configuration. Computers that run Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 support both SMB 1.0 and SMB 2.0. Windows includes an SMB client component (Client for Microsoft Windows) and an SMB server component (File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Windows). By default, SMB 2.0 is the file sharing protocol that is used when both client and server support it.
The SMB protocol revision to be used for file operations is decided during the negotiation phase. A Windows Vista or later client advertises to the server that it understands the new SMB 2.0 protocol. If the server understands SMB 2.0, SMB 2.0 is used for communication. Otherwise, the client and server use SMB 1.0. If SMB 1.0 is expected to be used, you can set the registry key that is mentioned above on Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

How to remove Active Directory from a DC in safe mode

Read the following article from MS Knowledge Base:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/332199
You can also try to repair AD using this article's info:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258062

How to manually identify and find unknown devices drivers with Vendor and Device ID

read this article:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/01/09/how-to-manually-identify-find-unknown-devices-drivers-with-vendor-and-device-id/

Using Performance Monitor to Gather Server Performance Statistics

Before you begin, if you are going to use a central workstation to collect statistics, make sure the Performance Logs and Alerts service on the workstation is configured to start with a domain account that has access to every server that you want to monitor.
1. Load the PerfMon utility on a workstation or server (Administrative Tools > Performance).
2. In the left pane, select Counter Logs (located under Performance Logs and Alerts).
3. Select Action from the top menu (or right-click Counter Logs) and choose New Log Settings.
4. Enter a descriptive name for your log settings.
5. Click the Add Counters button.
6. Choose the Select Counters from Computer option, and type in the name of one of the servers you are going to monitor below it. Be sure and include the \\ before the Windows server name.
7. After you enter your server name, it will connect to it and display a list of available counters below it.
8. Select the performance object that you want to display counters for (for example,
processor, memory, network interface), and then select the individual counter (for
instance, Pages/sec), select All Instances if it is applicable (except for Network
Interfaces, you do not want to select the Loopback interface) and not grayed out, and
then click the Add button.
9. Repeat this for every performance counter that you want to monitor on the server.
The recommended counters you will want to add are listed here:

Memory: Available MBytes
Memory: Pages/sec
Processor: % processor time
System: Processor queue length
Network Interface: Bytes total/sec
Physical Disk: % Disk Time
Physical Disk: Avg. disk queue length
Physical Disk: Disk bytes/sec
Physical Disk: Disk transfers/sec

10. After you have added all counters for a particular server, you can type in a new server name to continue adding counters for other servers.
11. Click the Close button after you have added all counters.
12. Select the data sample interval, the default is 15 seconds, which is an aggressive interval and will result in more peak instances because of the shorter sampling period. You may want to consider changing this to a high interval between one and five minutes so that you do not overwhelm the workstation and cause it to miss data from some of the servers.
13. Click OK to save your custom log settings.
14. Collection will automatically begin (as indicated when the icon turns green). The results will be written to a log file (for example, C:\PerfLogs\MyServers000001.blg). You can stop it at any time by selecting your log settings and selecting Action, Stop (or by right-clicking it and selecting Stop). When you stop a collection, the log file it has written to is no longer used; a new log file is created once you start it again.
15. If you have stopped your collection, you can review it by selecting System Monitor in the left pane, and then clicking the Disk icon (View Log Data). Then, on the Source tab, select your log file that was created. Optionally, you can change the time range. On the Data tab, add your performance counters for each server. On the General tab, select your view type (Graph, Histogram, or Report) and click OK. Your counter will be displayed, and you can see the minimum, maximum, and average results for each one.
16. It’s a good idea to test this for a short period (for example, one hour) and review the
results to make sure it is working before you leave it running for a longer period of
time.

Windows Stop Messages

http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

Error message assigning IP to a NIC

When you enter the IP Address on a NIC, you receive:

   The IP address  you have entered for this network
  adapter is already assigned to another adapter .
   is hidden from the network and Dial-up Connections
  folder because it is not physically in the computer or is a legacy adapter
  that is not working. If the same address is assigned to both adapters and
  they become active, only one of them will use this address. This may result
  in incorrect system configuration. Do you want to enter a different IP
  address for this adapter in the list of IP addresses in the advanced dialog box?

Where is the IP address that you are trying to set and is the name of the network adapter that is present in the registry but hidden in Device Manager.

If you press Yes, you can change the IP Address. If you press No, your NIC and the ghosted NIC have the same address. This is not normally a problem as the driver for the ghosted NIC is disabled.

This problem is genrally caused by moving the NIC to a different PCI slot.

To fix the problem:

1. Open a CMD prompt.

2. Type:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

3. Type:

Start DEVMGMT.MSC

4. Press View and Show Hidden Devices.

5. Expand the Network Adapters tree.

6. Right-click the ghosted NIC and press Uninstall.