Windows Tips & Tricks UPDATE--March 8, 2004

Windows Tips & Tricks UPDATE, March 8, 2004, —brought to you by the Windows & .NET Magazine Network and the Windows 2000 FAQ site
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FAQs

Commentary
by John Savill, FAQ Editor, [email protected]

This week, I explain how to stop certain subfolders from automatically appearing in the My Documents folder in Windows XP and later, how to enable user environment debugging in Windows 2000 and later, and what you need to know about renaming the Microsoft Exchange Server organization. I also tell you how to restore the contents of the Default Domain and the Default Domain Controller Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and describe the Windows Server 2003 domain modes.

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FAQs

Q. How can I stop the My eBooks, My Videos, and My Music subfolders from appearing in the My Documents folder in Windows XP and later?

A. Each new version of Windows seems to add a new set of subfolders to the My Documents folder. If you delete these subfolders, Windows will automatically recreate them the next time you log on. To stop Windows from creating these subfolders every time, perform the following steps:

The steps above disable the My Documents functions, so if your system is missing some functionality, you'll need to reregister mydocs.dll. If you want to reregister the .dll file, perform the above steps again but use the command

regsvr32 mydocs.dll

Q. How can I enable user environment debugging in Windows 2000 and later?

A. To debug the user environment settings, you can create a log file (i.e., %systemroot%debugusermodeuserenv.log) with different levels of information concerning your log on, log off, and other user environment activity. This log file can help you debug problems related to policy application and profile application and saving. For example, I recently used userenv.log to help ascertain why client machines weren't copying user profiles to the roaming profile location--I was able to determine that the user registry hive was locked and couldn't be copied.

To set the logging level associated with the userenv.log file, perform the following steps:

You can combine the values from the table in Step 5 (e.g., for verbose output to logfile, use value 00010002).

Q. Can I rename the Microsoft Exchange Server organization?

A. Even with Exchange Server 2003 in native mode, you still can't rename the Exchange organization. To rename the organization, you would need to totally uninstall Exchange, clean up the server, and reinstall Exchange with the new organization name. You'd also need to export your mail items to personal folder store (PST) files, then use the exmerge.exe tool to re-import the mail items. Finally, you'd have to address problems with recipients who try to reply to existing messages because the X.500 address would have changed (as a result of the new organization name) unless you populate the users in Active Directory (AD) with the original X.500 address.

Q. How can I restore the contents of the Default Domain and the Default Domain Controller Group Policy Objects (GPOs)?

A. Best practice stipulates that you shouldn't modify the Default Domain and the Default Domain Controller GPOs. Instead, you should create new GPOs and link them to the relevant containers. However, if you've already modified the GPO and want to restore the default content, perform the following steps:

For example, when I type

dcgpofix /target:both

my computer returns the following output:

  Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Operating System Default Group Policy Restore  Utility v5.1  Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. 1981-2003  Description: Recreates the Default Group Policy Objects (GPOs) for a  domain  Syntax: DcGPOFix [/ignoreschema] [/Target: Domain | DC | BOTH]  This utility can restore either or both the Default Domain policy or  the Default Domain Controller policy to the state that exists  immediately after a clean install. You must be a domain administrator  to perform this operation.  WARNING: YOU WILL LOSE ANY CHANGES YOU HAVE MADE TO THESE GPOs. THIS  UTILITY IS INTENDED ONLY FOR DISASTER RECOVERY PURPOSES.  You are about to restore Default Domain policy and Default Domain  Controller policy for the following domain    savilltech.com    Do you want to continue: ? Y  WARNING: This operation will replace all 'User Rights Assignments'  made in the chosen GPOs. This may render some server applications to  fail.   Do you want to continue: ? Y  The Default Domain Policy was restored successfully.  Note: Only the contents of the Default Domain policy was restored.  Group Policy links to this Group Policy Object were not altered.  By default, the Default Domain policy is linked to the Domain.  The Default Domain Controller policy was restored successfully.  Note: Only the contents of the Default Domain Controller policy was  restored. Group Policy links to this Group Policy Object were not  altered.  By default, the Default Domain Controller policy is linked to the  Domain Controllers OU.

Q. What are the Windows Server 2003 domain modes?

A. Windows 2000 offers two domain modes: mixed and native. Windows 2003 expands on these modes so that you can access features available only in the new OS. The domain modes available in Windows 2003 are

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