MSDN has great documentation about Failover Clusters, including a handy checklist for implementing cluster roles, such as:

• Checklist for a (generic) failover cluster
• Checklist for a clustered file server
• Checklist for a clustered print server
• Checklist for a clustered Hyper-V virtual machine

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By default, it is not possible to specify passwords (the SecureString type) directly as a plain-text cmdlet parameter because it is unsecure to do so (and they are right). But sometimes, there's no other way to run a cmdlet without specifying the password as plain text as a cmdlet parameter. Luckily, there's an easy workaround by performing a conversion from plain text and store the password in a SecureString object.

$pw = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "your-pw" -AsPlainText -Force

You can then use the $pw object to specify the password in a cmdlet.

For example: resetting the password of an AD account:

Set-ADAccountPassword -Identity my-account -NewPassword $pw

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If, when attempting to start SQL Server instance, you get an error 1814, this means there's a problem with the tempdb database. Either it can't be created because the disk or volume is not accessible for writing (i.e. a security permission problem), or the volume on which the tempdb resides does not have enough space available. If the latter is the problem, you'll need at least 2 MB of free space for tempdb to be created.

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You can retrieve a list of stored procedures in a SQL Server database through T-SQL by querying the built-in information_schema partition.

SELECT * 
FROM db_name.information_schema.routines 
WHERE routine_type = 'PROCEDURE'

Replace db_name with the name of the database you wish to retrieve the list of stored procedures. You can adjust the WHERE-clause even more to get a more narrow list.

You can also do this with the master database which will return all (system and non-system) stored procedures.

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You can hide user accounts from the Windows Welcome (log on) screen through the registry. This works with Vista and all later versions.

1. Start up regedit.
2. Navigate to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
3. Under Winlogon, create a new key called SpecialAccounts
4. Under SpecialAccounts, create another key called UserList.
5. Under UserList, create a DWORD value for each account:
   • Name: the full account name (including spaces)
   • Type: DWORD (32-bit)
   • Value:
     • 0: hides the account
     • 1: shows the account

Probably MSSQL 101, but this is how to quickly retrieve the structure of a table:

EXEC sp_help tbl_name
GO

tbl_name is the name of the table.

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http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/plugin/developer_guide/version.html

If you accidentally have misplaced or forgotten your Bitlocker Recovery key, but still have access to the system (with an elevated account), you can retrieve the recovery key quite easily through the command line:

Open an elevated command prompt and type:

manage-bde -protectors -get C:

Replace C: with any drive that has Bitlocker enabled. Note that if it's not the system volume but some other drive that's encrypted, you need to unlock it first before you can retrieve the recovery key.

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You may have noticed that running the VMWare vSphere client on a display with higher DPI settings causes problems with the mouse cursor alignment when working inside a VM. This is because of a mismatch between the DPI settings of the VM and the DPI settings of your computer.

To resolve, right-click the shortcut to the client, go to the Compatibility tab, and enable Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

The downside of this method is that there will be misalignment of some parts in the client, but it is still workable and moreover, it solves the mouse issue in a VM.

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If Windows Update (or Microsoft Update) produces error code 0x80072EFD, you are most likely blocked by a firewall or a proxy.

• Check any firewall that may be blocking access to the update sites. This includes any software-based firewall on the server, as well as network firewalls and content filters.
• If you have configured a proxy, check whether the proxy is reachable and does not block access. If you don't have a proxy server (anymore), it may still be configured. See this article on how to check and resolve.