Welcome to the core Windows Server administration and engineering hub on saotn.org. Managing modern enterprise Windows Server environments requires a balance of scalable automation, proactive performance maintenance, and strict security baselines.
This category serves as a deep technical repository for sysadmins and infrastructure engineers. Whether you are deploying bare-metal nodes, managing hybrid active directory topologies, or streamlining lifecycle operations via command-line tooling, these verified guides offer production-ready solutions to keep your server fleet stable, secure, and highly optimized.
To assist with your environment maintenance, our essential Windows Server documentation is organized by administrative focus:
Browse the extensive chronological list of Windows Server tutorials, group policy enforcement templates, and deep-level registry troubleshooting guides below.
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Users can install and run multiple .NET Framework versions on their computers. When you develop or deploy your app, you might need to know which .NET versions are installed on a machine and here is how to check the .NET version.
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Compressed SQL Server backups can be verified in PowerShell using a handy PowerShell function. This comes in handy when you need to verify if existing SQL Server backups are compressed.
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Unzip a file on your PowerShell command-prompt may come in handy sometimes, even on your Windows 11/10 workstation. Use Expand-Archive for this, and all that is required is PowerShell 5.0+, or the .NET 4.5+ Framework to use System.IO.Compression.ZipFile.
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WSUSPool keeps stopping? Sometimes you find your WSUS server keeps crashing over and over again. The WSUS application pool periodically stops, WSUS is unavailable and/or the WSUS management console hangs.
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In this post I address four (4) important actionable security measures for your servers running Windows Server (AD DS, DFS, IIS) and RDP.
Windows Server
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It is urged you disable SMBv1 in your Windows variant (Windows 10, 8.1, Server 2016, 2012 R2), and here is how if you haven’t done so yet.
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Being able to detect the ethernet network speed using PowerShell or WMI is perfect for Windows Server Core. If you ever need to lookup the speed of your ethernet network card in Windows, on the command-prompt, use one of the following PowerShell / WMIC commands.
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Windows Server 2016 was released last week, meaning we can finally lift the idiotic 260 characters limitation for NTFS paths. For this, you use a GPO or Group Policy Object in Windows Server.
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In this post I provide you with 5 ways to cleanup files and free up disk space in Windows Server 2016 (and older / newer Windows Server version), without using the Disk Cleanup Utility. Reclaim lots of lost gigabytes easy. Disk space usage is still an issue in Windows Server.
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You sometimes need to list and get all MAC addresses of all Hyper-V virtual machines in your network. Either for your Hyper-V administration or provisioning if you don’t set an unique MAC address automatically. Here is how to get all those MAC addresses easily with PowerShell.
Windows Server
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Learn to migrate KMS from Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2012 R2 and KMS Activation Known Issues.
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When you start to play with Windows Server 2016 and IIS 10, you’ll get an error when you try to install the IIS URL Rewrite Module in IIS. The error occurs because the URL Rewrite Module installer contains an invalid version check for the IIS being used. Here is how to install IIS URL Rewrite Module 2 in IIS 10…
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The AppCmd.exe command is your one-stop-shop for administering Windows Server IIS web servers. In combination with WinRM it is your Swiss Army knife for your daily routine. This post introduces appcmd and provides you with a lot of helpful appcmd examples.
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This post walks you through the steps necessary to install the SQL Server driver and SQLSRV extension for PHP, on Windows Server IIS of course. Using modern PIE installation method.
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Learn to protect your WordPress website with this web.config file on Windows Server IIS. Block IP addresses, bad bots, query string sequences
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Fix for IIS URL Rewrite Module error “Rewrite Module error: Expression contains a repeat expression”
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Using Windows Server File Server Resource Manager‘s File Screens you can block vulnerable WordPress plugins from being uploaded to your IIS web server. In the following example, you’ll learn how to block WP DB Backup plugin system-wide on Windows Server, read on…
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Regular maintenance of a Windows computer significantly improves performance and reliability. Manual execution of maintenance tasks complements the automatic maintenance already scheduled by Windows, giving users greater control over how system resources are managed and how repairs are conducted. This article explains how to use tools such as SFC, DISM, CHKDSK, and disk defragmentation.
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Learn how to get the Hyper-V guest virtual machine serial number with PowerShell, this is ideal for automated deployments with WDS or docs
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Learn to block Baidu spider (BaiduSpider user agent) properly, because it is a real pain to block. Especially since Baidu does not respect `robots.txt` as it should. This post shows you how to block Baidu Spider bot, using IIS URL Rewrite Module based on its User-Agent string.