"Verbose" event logging in Windows

The behavior that my Windows 2008 Network Policy Server (aka Radius Server) did not log the successfully authorized usernames always bothered me. Fortunately there is a way to get that stupid habit to work as expected.
Open an elevated command promt and type this to get a list of your event categories and their subcategories:
Auditpol /list /subcategory:* /r  (optional)

Then type: (note that category name strings are localized!)
Auditpol /set /subcategory:"Network Policy Server" /success:enable /failure:enable  
and... backup your policy(ies):
Auditpol /backup /file:C\mypolic.csv  (optional)

Another method to log both Event 6273 and 6279 could be done via a GPO:
Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Advanced Audit Policy Configuration -> Audit Policies -> Logon/Logoff -> Audit Network Policy Server (set both success and failure to enable). Don't forget to gpupdate /force.

Further reading here.

Querying Exchange quota limits in Powershell

Get-mailbox | where {$_.UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults -ne $true} 

Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where-Object {$_.StorageLimitStatus -match 'BelowLimit|IssueWarning|ProhibitSend|MailboxDisabled'} 

Get-mailbox | get-mailboxstatistics | sort-object totalitemsize –descending | ft displayname,totalitemsize

Get-PublicFolder -Recurse -ResultSize Unlimited  | Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server <exchange> | Select FolderPath, ItemCount, TotalAssociatedItemSize, TotalDeletedItemSize, TotalItemSize | fl Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort-Object TotalItemSize -Descending | Select-Object DisplayName,StorageLimitStatus,TotalItemSize -First 100  | Sort-Object TotalItemSize

Set-Mailbox <mailbox> -UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults $false -IssueWarningQuota 8GB -ProhibitSendQuota 8.5GB

Get-PublicFolder "\" -Recurse -resultsize unlimited| Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server <server> | Select FolderPath, ItemCount, TotalAssociatedItemSize, TotalDeletedItemSize, TotalItemSize | fl

Windows 2008 Server R2 hangs on "Preparing to configure Windows. Do not turn off your computer"

Last night I started installing updates on a Windows 2008 R2 box but when I had my dinner and returned to my computer I got pissed off seeing the server stalled at

and I could not RDP into the OS. I spent ca. half an hour waiting for something to happen, then, made a short google search. It turned out that if I connected to this OS via the services.msc console of an other server being in the same domain network I could see that WINDOWS MODULES INSTALLER Service was stuck in Stopping state.
Using the built-in Sysinternals utils:

taskkill /S hostname /IM trustedinstaller.exe

or

sc \\computername queryex TrustedInstaller
taskkill /s computername /pid /f

...I could have been able to terminate that task. According to some internet records if I had done so, my server would have restarted without a hitch. Luckily enough, after entertaining me for more than one hour (-meanwhile actualy doing nothing-) this damn server finally restarted by itself! After the reboot it installed the updates and got ready in less than 5 minutes.
So, in case you are here because you are in the same business as I was, now you'd better have some coffee and wait patiently instead of roughly interfere.