RE: [ActiveDir] Disabling "Distributed Link Tracking Server" on domain Controllers

[Rich Milburn]

Hmmm interesting thing you bring up Joe – cleanup defaults… and for that matter, other configuration defaults.  Microsoft could set defaults on all these things, but I doubt the defaults would work as one-size-fits-all.  A book could be written giving lots of various things like this that people don’t think and/or know to do, along with recommendations and all the variables surrounding them (i.e. if you have more than x users and y computers and z sites and n DCs then you should clean this up, etc).  Or maybe someone could write a wizard that would cover a lot of this obscure configuration and maintenance stuff, from this, to DNS scavenging, etc (check boxes are great as to what to include), and it could walk you through (how many users, how many computers, or it could even analyze stuff from the directory itself) and then give recommended values you can tweak if you want, and write a configuration file.  Then run the utility with a -forreal switch and it pops up all the things it’s about to do/configure for you, make you check the things you want to do, and go out and do them.    Not for the faint of heart, I admit… and it might eat into some consulting $$ for some people… but others would probably benefit from the scattered advice of what to scavenge, tombstone, disable, delete, etc all put into one wizard.    I’m just talking off the cuff here though, so maybe I’m full of non-practical ideas this afternoon J     ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Rich Milburn MCSE, Microsoft MVP - Directory Services Sr Network Analyst, Field Platform Development Applebee's International, Inc. 4551 W. 107th St Overland Park, KS 66207 913-967-2819 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ”I love the smell of red herrings in the morning” - anonymous From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 3:10 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Disabling "Distributed Link Tracking Server" on domain Controllers   They don't age out. You need to delete them. MS cleans up very little in the directory automatically. Actually I was having an offlist conversation with one of my MS friends about this topic in regards to the previous FSP question. When deleting them it isn't too much impact, however, when they get purged out after the tombstone expires you may find your DCs chugging away if you have lots. I have seen hundreds of thousands of the filelinks in a directory before eating up tremendous space.   Personally I would hope the AD admins are doing a good job cleaning things up but for all practical purposes, most places aren't cleaning up and have no clue that they should be or that they need to be. The hard part, when SHOULD the system automatically delete something. It comes down it being able to identify without a shadow of a doubt that the object isn't needed (say computer objects, FSP, etc) or could be perfectly reconstituted if necessary in the event of a bad delete.      joe   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of AD Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 12:52 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Disabling "Distributed Link Tracking Server" on domain Controllers Thanks for info the joe and Guido,   Because of our politics where I work, modifiying 40000 workstations is not that easy. Changing 20 DCs on the other hand is a walk in the park.   If I do not remove all of the filelinks manually, aren't they going to age out automatically after 60 days?   Thanks   Y   From: Grillenmeier, Guido Sent: Mon 28/11/2005 11:46 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Disabling "Distributed Link Tracking Server" on domain Controllers nope, no known impact (unless you have specifically deployed an app that makes use of this service - none of the MS apps do, which is why the service is disabled by default in Win2003).   however, if you want to make sure, why don't you just reverse your disabling process: first disable all clients, then disable the service on the DCs.   Don't forget to cleanup the records underneath your domain's System\FileLinks\ObjectMoveTable and System\FileLinks\VolumeTable containers as these will surely contain a lot of garbage.   /Guido   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of AD Sent: Montag, 28. November 2005 17:40 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: [ActiveDir] Disabling "Distributed Link Tracking Server" on domain Controllers As anyone found any issues in disabling the "distributed link tracking server" on windows 2000 server domain controllers?   I would like to take a two step approach in disabling this useless service. First on the DCs and them on all workstations. I was just wondering if there would be an impact on the clients seeing that cannot communicate with the server.   Thanks   Yves  -------APPLEBEE'S INTERNATIONAL, INC. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE------- PRIVILEGED / CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION may be contained in this message or any attachments. This information is strictly confidential and may be subject to attorney-client privilege. This message is intended only for the use of the named addressee. 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