Compacting the AD DS database NTDS.DIT improves performance. The improvement varies depending on amount of changes to the database.
 
Stop "Active Directory Domain Services" (also stops the services below)
-File Replication Service
-Kerberos Key Distribution Center
-Intersite Messaging
-DNS Server
 
 
ntdsutil
ntdsutil: activate instance ntds
Active instance set to "ntds".
ntdsutil: files
Service "NTDS" is running. Stop the service before binding to this Active Direct
ory database.
ntdsutil: files
file maintenance: compact to c:\temp
Initiating DEFRAGMENTATION mode...
Source Database: C:\Windows\NTDS\ntds.dit
Target Database: c:\temp\ntds.dit
Defragmentation Status (% complete)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................
It is recommended that you immediately perform a full backup
of this database. If you restore a backup made before the
defragmentation, the database will be rolled back to the state
it was in at the time of that backup.
Compaction is successful. You need to:
copy "c:\temp\ntds.dit" "C:\Windows\NTDS\ntds.dit"
and delete the old log files:
del C:\Windows\NTDS\*.log
quit
quit

 

copy "c:\temp\ntds.dit" "C:\Windows\NTDS\ntds.dit"
del C:\Windows\NTDS\*.log
 
 
 
 
 
ntdsutil
ntdsutil: activate instance ntds
Active instance set to "ntds".
ntdsutil: files
Service "NTDS" is running. Stop the service before binding to this Active Direct
ory database.
ntdsutil: files
file maintenance: help
? - Show this help information
Checkpoint - Dump Jet checkpoint file
Checksum - Perform Jet physical integrity check
Compact to %s - Compact DB to specified directory
Dump page %d - Dump Jet db %d page number
Header - Dump the Jet database header
Help - Show this help information
Info - Return information about DS files
Integrity - Perform Jet logical integrity check
Logfile %s - Dump Jet log file %s. %s could be absolute
path or just the log file name in log dir.
Metadata - Dump Jet db metadata
Move DB to %s - Move DB to specified directory
Move logs to %s - Move log files to specified directory
Quit - Return to the prior menu
Recover - Perform soft database recovery
Set backup exclusion key - Set backup exclusion key for the AD DS/LDS.
Set default folder security - Reset security on NTDS folders to default
values
Set path backup %s - Set online backup directory path
Set path DB %s - Set DB file path
Set path logs %s - Set logging directory path
Set path working dir %s - Set AD DS/LDS working directory path
Space usage - Dump Jet db space usage

 

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All advice, installation/configuration how to guides, troubleshooting and other information on this website are provided as-is with no warranty or guarantee. Whilst the information provided is correct to the best of my knowledge, I am not reponsible for any issues that may arise using this information, and you do so at your own risk. As always before performing anything; check, double check, test and always ensure you have a backup.

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