Active Directory – Tyler Woods

Deny Remote Desktop (RDP) login for all but your account

February 22, 2017 Tyler Woods

My computer is on a domain. I wanted to enable RDP access so I could work remotely, however in doing that, I’m letting my colleagues and others in my organization log in to my PC, as well as potentially allowing an intruder to log in. There are options to disallow logins from specific groups, however I can not block those domain groups because I am part of them. The easier approach for me is to be selective with who is allowed as opposed to defining explicit blocks. To allow…

Convert a local Windows account to an Active Directory domain account, preserving files and settings for domain use.

February 5, 2017 Tyler Woods

When you migrate a user from a workgroup/local environment to an Active Directory domain, the user experience is always an immediate shock. This is because the user will normally lose all their settings and files under the new account. Of course, fearless IT people will be able to get everything back the way it was. But this has proven to be a tedious task; copying files, program configs, browser data.. you can forget something. Have no fear, ForensiT User Profile Wizard is here! User Profile Wizard: To download this amazing…

Disable Microsoft Office 2013 first-run wizard and welcome splash with Group Policy

December 22, 2016December 22, 2016 Tyler Woods

The computer lab is coming together, but every time a student logs in, they are forced through the first-run wizard. I was asked to disable this, and here’s how: Download and Import ADMX files First, if you have not already, you will need to obtain and import the Microsoft Office 2013 Administrative Template Files (ADMX) Copy all the ADMX files plus your language folder and paste them into your /Policy/PolicyDefinitions folder within your domain’s SYSVOL share. Now open a fresh Group Policy Management console, modify an existing GPO or create…

Automatically force log off and terminate disconnected RDP sessions to free up system resources.

December 21, 2016January 4, 2017 Tyler Woods

I’m working with a situation where all of the computers in a computer lab are actually zero-clients connecting to a dedicated Windows 7 VM on a server cluster. This environment has its complexities, and I’m working to improve the performance. That being said, I would get frequent notices from the Instructor that the computers would be running slow. Rebooting the VMs would fix that, but it appeared that was just a Band-Aid. I noticed that each VM would hold on to the disconnected RDP sessions and continue to consume resources in the background.…