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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Using setspn.exe: 3 unique methods to list Service Principal Names (SPNs) in your Windows network quickly using PowerShell / CMD.exe. An SPN or Service Principal Name is a unique identity for a service, mapped with a specific account.
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If a Windows Server 2016 guest VM on Hyper-V hangs while stopping after Windows Updates, and it won't reboot, it might be caused by the recovery debug information type set. Especially when you have moved the Windows PageFile to a different partition / VHDX
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Microsoft's January 2018 Meltdown and Spectre updates, like KB4056892, were only offered when the QualityCompat registry key was set by your anti-virus software.
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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 files using PowerShell command-prompt may come in handy sometimes, even on your Windows 11 workstation. Use Expand-Archive cmdlet or .NET System.IO.Compression.ZipFile, as this post explains.
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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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A quicky: merge or concatenate multiple text or log files into one new file in Windows, using copy in cmd.exe or Get-Content in PowerShell.
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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.
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Disable SMBv1 on WIndows, if you haven't done so yet. Prevent Petya / NotPetya, WannaCrya / Wanacryp0r randsomware spreading through your network.
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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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How to restrict automatic NS resource record registration in Windows Server DNS with Dnscmd and the DisableNSRecordsAutoCreation setting.
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Enable NTFS long paths and lift the idiotic 260 characters limitation for NTFS paths. You use a GPO or Group Policy Object in Windows Server or a registry key value to set LongPathsEnabled.
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The best paper I have read on building Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) with Windows Event IDs, plus a SANS series on Windows event logs for forensics.
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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.
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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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Hosting Ghost on IIS with iisnode and an SSL/TLS certificate may give you a "Too many redirects" error. Here is the solution: enableXFF.