Frode Lillerud's questions

I'm trying to get certificates to work on our Windows 2008 Terminal server. Currently when we log on using RDP 6.1 client we get an certificate warning saying that the rdp.geas.local certificate is not trusted.

I've got a certificate for our external.com address, which we use on our Exchange 2007 server, and I'm trying to install the same certificate on our terminalserver.

However, when I got to Terminal Services Configuration->RCP-TCP Properties and click Select to bring up the Certificate selector dialog I'm only able to choose the self-signed certificate for the local machine.

I've installed our valid certificate in the Trusted Root Certificates, Personal and Third-Party Root Certificates, but it still won't show up as a choice in the RDP-TCP Properties dialog.

Does it require a specific certificate type, or am I just installing the Certificate in the wrong store?

We have a Windows 2008 domain, with a Windows 2008 Backup domain controller that is nearing end of life.

What is the proper way to demote or inform Active Directory that the server is going to be removed from the domain.

In my demoenvironment I juggle lots of SQL databases. Each database has lots of Users, which are linked to separate Security->Logins on the server.

Over time I keep ending up with many (like hundreds) of orphans Security->Logins that are not linked to any users in any of the databases.

Is there any SQL statements I can run to drop the unused Logins - i.e. the logins that have no mappings to database users?

What are the advantages of using .msi files over regular setup.exe files?

I have the impression that deployment is easier on machines where users have few permissions, but not sure about the details.

What features does msiexec.exe have that makes deployment more easy than using setup.exe scenarios?

Any tips or tricks when deploying .msi applications?

on our terminal server all users have minimal (i.e. default) permissions. None are local administrators on that machine.

Still Java Runtime displays message to every user that an update is available. Clicking on the update asks for admin-credentials, which none of the users have.

How can I stop Java from showing the update notice to all the users? Only administrators should see it. Its pretty annoying that lots of users contact us whenever Java requires an update.

we built a plain Windows 2008 Server park a few months back, and set up a few Group Policies. Most of them seem to work fine, but once in a while I have the feeling that one or more have not been applied.

Take for instance the Group Policy that logs of people from our Terminal Server who have been idle for more than 12 hours. I've received numerous reports that people are NOT kicked out, even though I know it has worked at some time.

Also the policy that adjusts how many days in advance a user should be notified that its time to change a password doesn't seem to have been applied at all.

I know about "gpupdate /force", and it has been weeks since we've altered the group policies so the problem isn't just a replication problem.

How can I check a specific machine for a list of the group policies applied? Are there any tools that makes working with Group Policies easier? Any tips when working with GPs?

I'm a dba with a database with ~280 tables, and total datasize of ~1,5GB. I'd like to tune the database to make it perform better.

What do you do to keep your SQL databases performant? How much fiddling with indexes, statistics, and defragmentation do you do?

What are the biggest performance killers/improvements, and how do you troubleshoot to find out where to optimize?

Edit: This is a database from a 3rd party CRM system, so I have no control over the code. They have added lots of indexes (in sensible places), but I would like to know how I can maintain the speed of the server.

I do run nightly

EXEC sp_MSforeachtable "dbcc dbreindex('?', '', 90)"

to rebuild indexes and (hopefully) update statistics, using a maintenance plan. The same plan also executes a "Shrink Database Task".

What other nightly/weekly maintenance tasks, or one-time optimizations could be done?

Edit 2:

Tips gathered:

• Do not run "Shrink Database Task"
• Turn off "Auto Shrink" property
• Run "EXEC sp_MSforeachtable "dbcc dbreindex('?', '', 90)"
• Then run "EXEC sp_updatestats"

Is there any way to find out how much diskspace a table in MSSQL uses? Or even better, how much diskspace a single row consumes?