SQL Server Setup failed to obtain system account information for the ASPNET account. To proceed, reinstall the .NET Framework, and then run SQL Server Setup again.

This is caused when ASP.net is installed before enabling IIS. This is easily fixed using the following on the command line:

\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\<version>\aspnet_regiis.exe -i

References

• Avoiding Microsoft SQL Server 2005 deployment pitfalls
• ASP.NET IIS Registration Tool

Open Security and find Linked Servers (Figure 1). This is where your linked server will show up after you add it.

Open Tools -> SQL Query Analyzer and paste in the following code:

exec sp_addlinkedserver 'ADSI', 'Active Directory Services 2.5', 'ADsDSOObject', 'adsdatasource'

You should now be able to expand Linked Servers and see a server called ADSI…and under that Tables and Views (Figure 2).

Step 2

Go back to SQL Query Analyzer and run the following query:

SELECT SAMaccountname, CN, telephoneNumber FROM OPENQUERY(ADSI, 'SELECT telephoneNumber, CN, SAMaccountname FROM ''LDAP://DC=your-domain,DC=com'' WHERE objectCategory=''person'' AND objectClass=''user'' ')

Nice huh?!? Now, create a new view and paste in this code! To get more fields, simply add the AD properties you would like returned…and update your SELECT. You can also filter by using WHERE on the outside of the parenthesis. For example:

SELECT SAMaccountname, CN, telephoneNumber FROM OPENQUERY(ADSI, 'SELECT telephoneNumber, CN, SAMaccountname FROM ''LDAP://DC=your-domain,DC=com'' WHERE objectCategory=''person'' AND objectClass=''user'' ') WHERE SAMaccountname='sshepherd'

more info: MSDN