Run Replmon on Windows Server 2008 / R2, 2012 / R2, Windows 7, 8 / 8.1 without installing Windows Server 2003 Support Tools; Active Directory – ADDS – Sites – WAN Links – Practical Simulation with VMware Workstation – InsideOut – Part I. The AD Replication Monitor utility (Replmon.exe) was introduced with the Windows Server 2000 Support Tools many years ago as a GUI mechanism for performing certain DC admin tasks. With the release of Window Server 2008 Replmon was not included and we stopped making add-on Support Tools.
The Treasures of Windows 2000 SP4Besides amending the EULA to maintain antitrust compliance and adding USB and wireless support, Microsoft rolls up fixes for a slew of performance bugs into its latest service pack. By. Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, released in June, is the latest batch offixes and features that can be applied to Windows 2000 Professional, Windows2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 with the ServerAppliance Kit operating systems. The 129MB SP4 contains more than 660bug fixes, the more interesting ones of which are detailed here. You caneither download SP4 from Microsoft's Web site at no charge , or you can order it on a CD.Although SP4 doesn't include any new features, it includes MicrosoftInternet Explorer 5.01 SP4 and Microsoft Outlook Express 5.5 SP2.
SP4primarily includes driver updates and security patches since the lastservice pack (SP3). The areas of main focus include security, operatingsystem reliability, application compatibility, and Windows 2000 setup.Similar to the previous service packs, SP4 is cumulative—it includesall the previous fixes from Windows 2000 service packs (SP1, SP2, andSP3) and the Windows 2000 Security Rollup Package version 1. Microsoftrecommends that you download and install SP4 to benefit from all the latestupdates.
If you're running any previous version, you can simply installSP4 on top of an existing service pack without removing it.EULA, USB, and WirelessAs I mentioned, SP4 primarily consists of security updates, patches,and new drivers. Let's first look at two major changes: end-user licensingand support for new devices. Updated EULA—There's been a lot of controversy aboutso-called 'phone home' features embedded in Microsoft products,particularly because those features raise privacy concerns. Windows XPalso includes several of them, such as Windows Media Player, Update RootCertificates, and error reporting features. Due to strong public criticism,Microsoft has updated the Windows 2000 End User License Agreement to addressthese issues.
According to Microsoft, users are now given more specificinformation regarding features that will 'call home' to Microsoftand are made aware that they can turn these features off if they wantto. (Both Digital Rights Management andSoftware Error Reporting by default run in silent mode, but can be turnedoff; I cover these and other 'phone home' features in more detailin I've written for another site.)Support for Wireless and USB 2.0—SP4 also adds supportfor wireless authentication protocol 802.1x and support for USB 2.0 EHCIhost controllers. With wireless and USB devices gaining tremendous popularity,this is great news for most users.
For more information on using 802.1xauthentication on computers running Windows 2000, Microsoft publishesdetailed information in, 'Using 802.1x Authentication on ComputersRunning Windows 2000.' For information on USB 2.0 support in Windows2000, read. DeployingSP4 Across a NetworkIf you're an administrator interested in installingSP4 on multiple computers in a corporate environment,you'll definitely be interested in reading the fromMicrosoft. The guide helps you plan deployment of SP4in both stand-alone installations as well as integratedinstallations where SP4 is integrated with Windows 2000.The step-by-step guide allows you to customize yourdeployments and it covers several scenarios.Updated Deployment and Support ToolsSP4 includes updated deployment tools, sysprep.exe and setupcl.exe,that allow you to deploy Windows 2000 on multiple computers.
However,the Windows 2000 Resource Kit Deployment Tools are not automatically installedwhen you install Windows 2000 SP4. The tools are available on Windows2000 SP4 CD-ROM in the SupportToolsDeploy.cab file. They are also availablefrom Microsoft's Web site at no charge ( to get it).In addition to the deployment tools, the following support tools havebeen updated but are not installed with SP4:. Iadstools.dll. Netdiag.exe. Netdom.exe.
Repadmin.exe. Replmon.exeThese are available in the SupportToolsSupport.cab file on the SP4CD-ROM. If you don't have the SP4 CD-ROM, you can download the from Microsoft's Web site.Updated Drivers in SP4Windows 2000 includes a file called driver.cab file, which containsdrivers that can be used with Windows 2000.
You'd imagine that SP4's update.exeprogram should update that file, but it doesn't. Instead update.exe addsanother file called sp4.cab, which contains just the updated drivers inthe driver.cab file. SP4 also installs a drvindex.inf file that pointsto sp4.cab for the updated drivers and a pointer to driver.cab for allother drivers.A Bug's Eye ViewLet's look at some fixes in SP4 that may be of interest to mostof us.
All of these bugs have been fixed in SP4:Cannot View Presentation Material When Participating in Data ConferenceIf you're participating in a data conference, you may not be ableto see the presentation material, such as PowerPoint slides or Word documents.To properly view the material you may need to leave the conference andrejoin it. This problem is detailed in.IIS Admin Services Does Not Stay Running and Exchange SMTP ServiceRepeatedly StopsOn an Exchange 2000 server running on Windows 2000 Server youmay notice that IIS Admin service stops repeatedly.
Replmon 2016
When you try to startIIS Admin, it stops again. Similarly, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)service and the Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) services also repeatedlystop and restart. The problem occurs if the Exchange server receives acorrupted message that contains an invalid recipient size. This problemis detailed in.No Audio on a Web Camera When You Resume from HibernationWhen you're using a USB Web camera, your computer's power statemay not be managed properly it goes into hibernation. When the systemwakes up, it doesn't quite realize that it's time to wake up.
As a result,you may be unable to record sound with your microphone. This problem isdetailed in.Cannot Play Video CDs on Windows 2000If you have a video CD that's written with third-party softwareand the Joliet option is selected, you may not be able to access fileson the video CD. Even Windows Media Player will refuse to recognize theformat. More details in.Administratively Created DNS Records May Not Be Security-EnhancedAny static records that are manually created by an administratorin an Active Directory-integrated DNS zone configured with the Allow SecureUpdates Only setting, may give full control access to members of Authenticatedusers group. Because the Authenticated users group essentially includesevery logged in user, this could be a security risk.
This problem is detailedin.You Cannot Access Protected Data After You Change Your PasswordIf you change your domain password, you may get an error whenyou try to access your own encrypted data. This happens because when thedomain password is changed, data is not re-encrypted with the new passworduntil you try to access the data. If you are not connected to the domainand you try to access the data for the first time, your attempt failsbecause you can't contact a domain controller. Obviously, you can't re-encryptthe data with your new password-you're not communicating with the domaincontroller, so you can't read your data. See for more details.Your Windows XP-Based Client Cannot Establish a VPN ConnectionWhen you try to establish a VPN connection from your Windows XPcomputer to your corporate network, you may get this:Error 721: Remote PPP peer is not respondingThis error occurs if you connect to a Windows 2000 server that's configuredin a cluster environment and is using the cluster's virtual IP addresson TCP port 1723, which is the port used by PPTP to establish a VPN tunnel.More details in.
Most of the time Active Directory replication seems to work pretty well. When the replication process does break down however, troubleshooting the problem can sometimes be surprisingly difficult.
Thankfully, the Windows operating system includes a command line tool called Repadmin that you can use to diagnose (and in some cases repair) Active Directory replication.The Repadmin tool has been a part of the Windows Server operating system since at least Windows Server 2003, and is alive and well in Windows Server 2012 R2. To use the Repadmin tool, you must open an elevated Command Prompt window.
This can be done in Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 by right clicking on the Start button and then choosing the Command Prompt (Admin) option from the shortcut menu.The way that you would use Repadmin depends on exactly what it is that you are trying to accomplish. For the purposes of this article, I will show you the basics. The techniques that I am about to describe assume that you are running Repadmin directly on a domain controller and that you are logged in as a domain administrator.The first command that you probably want to run is: Repadmin /replsummaryYou can see an example of this command in Figure 1. Click on image for larger view.
Figure 1. The Repadmin /Replsummary command provides an active directory replication summary. As you can see in the figure above, this command provides you with a summary view of the current replication health. So let's take a look at this summary in a bit more detail.As you look at the figure, you will notice that it is divided into two main sections - Source DSA and Destination DSA.
You will also notice that the same servers are listed in both sections. The reason for this is that the Active Directory uses a multi master domain model. In other words, Active Directory updates can be written to any domain controller (with read-only domain controllers being the notable exception). Those updates are then replicated to the other domain controllers in the domain. This is the reason why you see the same domain controllers listed as both source and destination DSAs. If my domain contained any read only domain controllers, they would only be listed in the Destination DSA section.Of course the replication summary report does more than just list your domain controllers. It also lists the largest replication deltas.
You can also see the total number of replications that have recently been attempted, as well as how many of those attempts failed. You can even see the percentage of attempts that resulted in an error.Obviously the summary is a good starting place, but you might be wondering what other types of information we can see. Here's another interesting command to take a look at:Repadmin /QueueThe Repadmin /queue command shows you how many items are in the queue waiting to be replicated. Click on image for larger view.
Figure 2. An empty queue list.If you look at Figure 2, you can see that there are currently no items in my queue.
It's actually normal to see some items in the queue. The only reason why my queue is showing zero items is because I work in a small shop with infrequent Active Directory updates. So if you see items in your queue, it does not necessarily indicate a problem. It's only a problem if those items sit in the queue indefinitely or if the queue length increases indefinitely.OK, so there is nothing in my Active Directory queue right now, but if you look back at Figure 1, you will recall that there were five recent replication operations that completed successfully.
What if I wanted to know more about those five objects? Well, in that type of situation, I could use the following command:Repadmin /ShowreplAs you can see in Figure 3, this command displays the GUID of each object that was initially replicated, as well as the replication result. This is useful because you may find that there is a single object for which replication is failing.
Click on image for larger view. Figure 3. You can see the results of attempted replication operations by using the Repadmin /showrepl command.So what can you do if you suspect that there may be a problem with Active Directory replication? Well, the Repadmin command supports about a dozen different switches that you can use to correct a wide variety of problems. The first thing that I would recommend doing however, is running the Repadmin /replicate command.
This command manually initiates the replication process. If that does not fix your problem then I recommend checking out.
The documentation explains how to use some Repadmin's more advanced troubleshooting and repair functions. About the AuthorBrien Posey is a 16-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience. As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Prior to going freelance, Posey was a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and health care facilities. He has also served as a network administrator for some of the country's largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox. In addition to his continued work in IT, Posey has spent the last several years actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in preparation to fly on a mission to study polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight training on his.
