Active Directory Corruption Comes In Two Flavors

Explains why hypervisor snapshots of domain controllers can't replace proper AD backups: restores risk lingering objects, replication inconsistency, and USN rollback during forest recovery.

A practical look at the ROI of fast AD recovery: quantifying lost operations while AD is down (Baltimore's $18M hit), why ransomware crews target AD objects—group accounts, GPOs, SYSVOL, DCs—and why continuity plans must cover AD.

The AD Replication Status Tool returns: a GUI for monitoring replication between domain controllers, after a brief Microsoft removal; the post recounts its history and favor among admins.

AD runs reliably day to day, yet common bad configurations put domains at risk of data loss and DC failure; the post catalogs eight situations admins overlook, however elementary they seem.

Fewer than one in ten admins have a tested domain or forest recovery plan; the post explains why that is untenable—and why Microsoft's 47-page forest recovery guide is only a starting point.

Why VM snapshots of domain controllers are unsupported: how USN rollback breaks replication across the up-to-dateness vector, and what separates supported AD snapshots from the risky kind.