Ajera Passwords
The next update of Ajera 8.10 will require more advanced passwords. The requirements: Minimum of 8 characters An upper and lower case letter A number A special character
Remote Desktop Connection Manager
RDCMan makes it really easy to organize your hosts into groups, each group can have its own defaults that are automatically used (unless you choose to manually override), you can connect groups of servers with one click, plus many other nifty features. http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=21101
Disable Aggressive Mode on Cisco ASA
Configuration > Remote Access VPN > Network (Client) Access > IKE Parameters > Check the box where it says “Disable inbound aggressive mode connections (IKEv1 only)
Workgroup & Outlook
It is possible to totally eliminate the outlook log on requirement when a user is on a workgroup PC. 1) set the workgroup name to match the pre2k log on domain that hosts the exchange server. 2) Set the user name on the users local account to match the user name in AD. These settings cause Outlook to… Read More »
Outlook 2016 setup
When connecting Outlook 2016 first ensure autodiscover.domain.com is setup. Next use the auto configuration wizard not manual setup (depreciated). If prompted for a user name DO NOT prepend it with the domain: NMS\Jon Smith becomes Jon Smith
Manually Setting a Printers IP
Canon Plotter Go to settings (4th icon) > Interface Setup > TCP/IP > IPv4 Set IPv4 Mode to Manual Go back then Choose IPv4 Settings Set the IP, Subnet Mask and Gateway Konica Copier Press Utility (Button) > Administrative Settings Log in with Password: 12345678 or 1234567812345678 Go to Network Settings > TCP/IP Settings Set the IP, Subnet… Read More »
AutoDiscover Req in ’16
AutoDiscover must be configured or Outlook 2016 will be unable to connect to Exchange Server. Outlook 2016 retrieves Exchange connectivity settings directly from AutoDiscover instead of the registry, making profiles more reliable, but that also makes AutoDiscover a required feature. If you have not yet configured AutoDiscover, you will need to do this prior to deploying Outlook 2016.… Read More »
Fully Format Disks
To Clear all partitions form a disk including Dell OEM run the following: DISKPART List Disk Select Disk “#” Clean From Disk Manager: Right Click the drive and Choose online Select GPT Create a New Volume with NTFS and 64K Allocation Size
Clean Install Windows
When installing Windows ONLY connect the drive(s) that will run the OS and the optical drive. Be sure all others are disconnected by: inspecting the internal connections in the PC, disconnecting all externals, and verifying the target drive specs in BIOS > Drives Disable drives not connected in BIOS > Drives Set the RAID to AHCI for a single… Read More »
Move iTunes backup
Open current iTunes backup: %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync Move the folder” Backup” to the new destination At the original folder location, press the SHIFT key, right-click and select “Open command window here” and enter this command (ends in new location): mklink /J %APPDATA%\Apple Backup “E:\Backup\iTunes”
Disable Hibernation
Windows default has hibernation turned on. This take good piece of the hard drive in the form of the hiberfil.sys file which takes up about as much c drive space as there is RAM installed. To dispose of the file and disable hibernation instantly use this in PowerShell: powershell -Command “Start-Process ‘powercfg.exe’ -Verb runAs -ArgumentList ‘/h off'”
DisplayPort 1.2
With Display port 1.2 you can daisy chain multiple monitors from 1 port. I found that this feature is disabled by default in the monitor hardware hardware. Based on the warning enabling this with a non compliant card will cause issues.
Dell Performance issue
Dell is once again shipping their workstations with Intel Speed Step enabled. This should be turned off in the BIOS.
Text comparision tool
Notepad++ has a plugin called compare. Note the visual map on the right side. This makes finding small changes in a script much easier. To access it: Install it from Plugins>Plugin Manager
Google Earth Pro is now Free
New Earth Pro keys are no longer being generated. If you do not have a key, use your email address and the key GEPFREE to sign in once you download the software here: https://geoauth.google.com/gev0/free_trial.html.
Deploying AutoDesk
This is our standard process for deploying Autodesk products.
NIC Driver Mystery
I setup an older Dell Latitude 6410 with Windows 8, checked the drivers, tested the Wi-Fi and sent it out the door. The only problem was the the laptop could only connect to some networks.
Search for PSTs
Before removing a drive from service or when moving a user to a new system, it is important to verify no PSTs have been left behind. To find all PSTs launch ISE as admin then run: Get-ChildItem -path c:\users\ -force -Recurse -filter ‘*.pst’ -erroraction ‘silentlycontinue’ | select name, Length, LastWriteTime, directory #Run as admin
Set Outlook permisions
In this example abaldwin is granted reviewer access to jjohnson’s calendar: get-mailbox -identity “jjohnson”| foreach {Add-MailboxfolderPermission $_”:\calendar” -User “abaldwin” -AccessRights Reviewer} To do this for an entire Co. use Excel and a list of all users then use Concatenate to edit the individual cmdlets which can be pasted in bulk to PowerShell.
Exchange 2013 Error “X-FEServer:”
This is caused after a new SSL Certificate is installed on Exchange. To resolve this go to IIS MMC find the certificate hash for the new cert then run the following PowerShell commands: Enable-ExchangeCertificate CertificateHash -Services SMTP Enable-ExchangeCertificate CertificateHash -Services IIS
Installing Exchange 2013
Pre-install: Contact ISP and setup a Reverse DNS Record on public IP if not reusing existing. First, decommission and uninstall all Exchange servers older than 2007. Add the Feature: Media Foundation: Install-WindowsFeature Server-Media-Foundation Next load the following components: Unified Communications Managed API 4.0 Runtime, Filter Pack 2010 x64, Filter Pack 2010 SP1 x64 Run the install package that… Read More »
Hardware migration via Sysprep
I was recently retiring the admin PC at HSLA and giving it to an end user for home use. At the same time I had a newer T3500 with a clean install of Windows that would make a great admin PC, however, I did not want to reinstall all the software and transfer the files. I first tried… Read More »
OST & PST Max file size
Microsoft Outlook 2007-2013 support American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and UNICODE personal folders (.pst) and offline folder (.ost) files. The WarnFileSize registry entry determines the maximum data that both the .pst and the .ost files can have. After this maximum data is reached, neither the .pst nor the .ost files are permitted to add any more data. These… Read More »
Fiddler
Fiddler is a free web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Use it to debug traffic from virtually any application that supports a proxy like IE, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and more. http://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler
Uninstall Office 2013
IMPORTANT: Before you start, you need to know removing Office manually is a long, complex process and might require that you reinstall the operating system if certain steps are done incorrectly.
Uninstall Office 2010
Uninstall using the Program and Uninstall troubleshooter You can try running the Program Install and Uninstall Troubleshooter to uninstall Office 2010. Warning: The troubleshooter only removes traditional MSI-based installation files. If you have a Microsoft Office Click-to-Run 2010 entry in Control Panel and you’re trying to uninstall it, the troubleshooter will not uninstall this type of Office 2010… Read More »
Cabling
Making Ethernet cables: Straight = wO,O,WG,Bl,wBl,G,wBr,Br Cross Over = wG,GwO,B,wB,O,wBr,Br Patch Cable Color standard: Color Use Black Desk side Patch Blue PC to Switch 1000 Green Router to ISP Orange PC to Switch 10/100 [Cat5] Red Server to Switch White DRAC & KVM Yellow Switch to Router Switch to Switch Switch to Wireless