F

factory mode

A mode of running Sysprep that postpones Windows Welcome or Mini- Setup and allows you to install additional drivers and applications and test the Windows installation. To run Sysprep in factory mode, use the command line Sysprep -factory

failover

In server clusters, the process of taking resource groups offline on one node and bringing them online on another node. When failover occurs, all resources within a resource group fail over in a predefined order; resources that depend on other resources are taken offline before, and are brought back online after, the resources on which they depend. See also server cluster.

FAT

See definition for file allocation table (FAT).

FAT32

A derivative of the file allocation table (FAT) file system. FAT32 supports smaller cluster sizes and larger volumes than FAT, which results in more efficient space allocation on FAT32 volumes . See also file allocation table (FAT).

fault tolerance

The ability of computer hardware or software to ensure data integrity when hardware failures occur. Fault-tolerant features appear in many server operating systems and include mirrored volumes, RAID-5 volumes, and server clusters. See also cluster; mirrored volume; RAID-5 volume.

file allocation table (FAT)

A file system used by MS-DOS and other Windows operating systems to organize and manage files. The file allocation table is a data structure that Windows creates when you format a volume by using FAT or FAT32 file systems. Windows stores information about each file in the file allocation table so that it can retrieve the file later. See also FAT32; NTFS file system.

File Replication service (FRS)

A service that provides multimaster file replication for designated directory trees between designated servers running Windows Server 2003. The designated directory trees must be on disk partitions formatted with the version of NTFS used with the Windows Server 2003 family. FRS is used by Distributed File System (DFS) to automatically synchronize content between assigned replicas and by Active Directory to automatically synchronize content of the system volume information across domain controllers. See also Active Directory; NTFS file system; service.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

A member of the TCP/IP suite of protocols, used to copy files between two computers on the Internet. Both computers must support their respective FTP roles: one must be an FTP client and the other an FTP server. See also Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

filter

For Indexing Service, software that extracts content and property values from a document to index them.

For Internet Protocol security (IPSec), a specification of Internet Protocol (IP) traffic that provides the ability to trigger security negotiations for a communication based on the source, destination, and type of IP traffic.

For Internet Information Services (IIS), a feature of Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) that allows preprocessing of requests and postprocessing of responses, permitting site-specific handling of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests and responses.

In IP and Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) packet filtering, a definition in a series of definitions that indicates to the router the type of traffic allowed or disallowed on each interface.

See also Internet Information Services (IIS); Internet Protocol (IP); Internet Protocol security (IPSec); Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI); Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX).

firewall

A combination of hardware and software that provides a security system for the flow of network traffic, usually to prevent unauthorized access from outside to an internal network or intranet. Also called a security-edge gateway . See also proxy server.

forest

One or more Active Directory domains that share the same class and attribute definitions (schema), site and replication information (configuration), and forest-wide search capabilities (global catalog). Domains in the same forest are linked with two-way, transitive trust relationships. See also Active Directory; domain; global catalog; schema.

forest root domain

The first domain created in a new forest. The forest-wide administrative groups, Enterprise Admins and Schema Admins, are located in this domain. As a best practice, new domains are created as children of the forest root domain. See also child domain; domain; forest.

fully qualified domain name (FQDN)

A DNS name that has been stated to indicate its absolute location in the domain namespace tree. In contrast to relative names , an FQDN has a trailing period (.) to qualify its position to the root of the namespace ( host.example.microsoft.com. ). See also domain name; Domain Name System (DNS); domain namespace.