David Thomas Garcia's questions

I'm using Windows 2012 R2 with Active Directory.

One of my DC has had hardware failure. I'd like to promote another server as a DC, but reading online it looks like I need the DSRM password to do so. I did not set up the domain controller and can't find the password written down anywhere. When I try to reset the password on the server while logged in as a Domain Admin, I get the error 0xa90. Google hasn't been much of a help, so hoping someone here knows what to do.

I've already removed the dead DC manually from Active Directory, thinking that might be causing the issue.

C:>Ntdsutil
Ntdsutil: set dsrm password
Reset DSRM Administrator Password: reset password on server null
Please type password for DS Restore Mode Administrator Account: ********
Please confirm new password: ********
Setting password failed.
        WIN32 Error Code: 0xa90
        Error Message: (null)

This morning a user, let's call them Greg, logged into their laptop which is running Windows 8 Pro. Their profile is a roaming profile, Active Directory is running on Windows Server 2012.

It took several minutes for their computer to finally log in. Usually the login is practically instant. Then there were some Lenovo automatic updates. Once they finally got into the computer, they discovered that all the files on their Desktop and files under Documents were missing. All that was left was two files on the Desktop and two under Documents out of dozens that were there on Friday when they shut down. Also all their settings like browser bookmarks and Skype login were missing/blank.

At first I thought that the profile had been switched from Roaming to Local. So I checked, but it was still set to Roaming. So I had them log into another computer, to see if it would pull down their documents. No luck, they just saw those same 4 files under Desktop and Documents.

I looked on the server under \\storageserver\profiles$\greg but that folder is completely empty. I then tried to look under \\storageserver\profiles$\greg.V2 but it says Access is Denied. I've since learned that is due to some group permissions that need to be set up prior to the creation of the user folders.

Does anyone know why the files would disappear? If they are still around, where could they be?

Possibly important: The only other things that has happened on that computer is that the computer name was changed to something more descriptive six days ago. They have logged off and shutdown many times since then, so can't see how that would be the issue that caused this? Not sure if changing the name back would make the files appear again?

No one else here has had issues with the roaming profiles or files disappearing. This is also the first time this has happened to my knowledge. This is also the only laptop here that is that model of Lenovo, and got whatever those updates were.

I'm running two DHCP servers both with Windows Server 2012. They are set up as with high availability using "load balanced, split 50/50." They named DC1 and DC2.

This morning, DC1 was frozen, there was a black screen and the computer was completely unresponsive. There is nothing in the event log that suggests what went wrong. I ended up having to hard reset it. It seemed that DC2 was not picking up the slack while DC1 was down. I noticed because a new computer I plugged into the network was not being assigned an IP address. Also, address renewal had failed on another computer, this was in the event log:

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address XXX

Your computer has lost the lease to its IP address 192.168.1.XXX on the Network Card with network address XXX.

If DC1 is not working, shouldn't DC2 automatically start issuing IPs and addressing renewal requests? Or is this something that has to be configured somewhere? I'm not very familiar with how this works, so any assistance would be appreciated.

I'm wondering if this was because DC1 wasn't actually unplugged or turned off, just frozen?

I'm trying to deploy an MSI via the Group Policy in Active Directory. But these are the errors I'm getting in the System event log after logging in:

• The assignment of application XStandard from policy install failed. The error was : %%1274
• The removal of the assignment of application XStandard from policy install failed. The error was : %%2
• Failed to apply changes to software installation settings. The installation of software deployed through Group Policy for this user has been delayed until the next logon because the changes must be applied before the user logon. The error was : %%1274
• The Group Policy Client Side Extension Software Installation was unable to apply one or more settings because the changes must be processed before system startup or user logon. The system will wait for Group Policy processing to finish completely before the next startup or logon for this user, and this may result in slow startup and boot performance.

When I reboot and log in again I simply get the same messages about needing to perform the update before the next logon. I'm on a Windows Vista 32-bit laptop. I'm rather new to deploying via group policy so what other information would be helpful in determining the issue? I tried a different MSI with the same results. I'm able to install the MSI using the command line and msiexec when logged into the computer, so I know the MSI is working ok at least.