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showing posts tagged with 'software'
Configure Internet Explorer (and Chrome) proxy settings through VBScript
edited by on June 12th 2015, at 13:14
Attached to this article are scripts to configure proxy settings for Internet Explorer (all versions). As Google Chrome uses the IE settings for their proxy settings, it can be used for that browser as well. I know there are other, far better methods for configuring proxy settings for clients, but continue your read to see why they were not usable in this particular case.

I ran into a customer where they were still using Internet Explorer Maintenance in their group policies to configure proxy settings for their clients. As a result, all users who got more recent computers did not get the proxy settings, as they were running Internet Explorer 10 or newer. Starting from IE10, configuration of  ...
 
NETLOGON wait operation timed out when demoting a 2003 domain controller
edited by on June 10th 2015, at 16:04

When demoting a 2003 domain controller using dcpromo, you may run into the following error:

Error
The operation failed because:

Failed to configure the service NETLOGON as requested

"The wait operation timed out"

The error message is quite misleading as the real cause has got nothing to do with NETLOGON, but is in fact a DNS issue. You will most likely have the server's primary DNS pointing to itself using loopback address (127.0.0.1) or its own IP address.

You can correct the issue by having the DNS point to remaining domain controllers, and remove any DNS pointing to itself (i.e. loopback address or any other IP owned by the server being demoted).

 
15 Things to Do After Installing Ubuntu 15.04 Desktop
edited by on June 9th 2015, at 16:18

Nice article about things you can do after a fresh install of Ubuntu on your computer:

http://www.tecmint.com/things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-15-04-desktop/

Very useful if you don't have a whole lot of experience with linux in general, and Ubuntu in particular.

 
About Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK)
edited by on June 9th 2015, at 10:47

It has always been a bit tedious to manage and customize Internet Explorer through group policies, especially when your network has different versions of Windows and/or different versions of Internet Explorer.

To reduce complexity of maintaining Internet Explorer in a network, since long, Microsoft has made available the Internet Explorer Administration Kit. This tool allows you to exert more control over Internet Explorer, its settings and its behaviour.

More information and downloading the IEAK: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219517.aspx

 
Unauthorize Windows DHCP server error
edited by on June 8th 2015, at 10:36
Upon unauthorizing a Windows DHCP server, you may get the following error:

DHCP
The parameter is incorrect.

Most commonly, there are two reasons for this error to occur.

If you have just unauthorized a DHCP server, it may take a while for AD to replicate the change to other domain controllers. As a result, the DHCP server may still think it's authorized, whereas it is not. Either wait for, or trigger AD replication throughout your network.

Another reason for this error to occur is the presence of another DHCP server in AD that no longer exists. You can check this with the netsh dhcp command, available on any server with the DHCP server role installed:

netsh dhcp show server

Run the com  ...
 
Difference between index rebuild and reorganize on SQL Server
edited by on June 8th 2015, at 09:47
Maintaining indexes on your table is an important part of keeping your database healthy and its performance adequate. There are two maintenance operations for any index: rebuilding and reorganizing. Both operations were designed to get rid of index fragmentation, but differ in how this is done.

 RebuildReorganizeWhat it doesDrops the existing index and recreates it from scratch.Physically reorganizes the leaf nodes of the index.When to useIndex fragmentation >= 40%Index fragmentation >= 10% and < 40%Impact on systemHigh.

Database will be offline during process, unless you have Enterprise Edition and have enabled the ONLINE option. Online rebuild requires more resources than o  ...
 
No logon servers available in a inter-domain trust
edited by on June 5th 2015, at 10:40
If your inter-domain trust is down, and the eventlog reveals the following error:

Error
There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request. (0x51F)

Then check the following:

Check whether you can still access the DNS servers at the other side: try using the name first, then try through IP. If DNS does not work, there's an issue with your DNS.

Check whether the DNS zones for the domain are still in place. If it exists, try performing a reload from master. If this fails, you either have connection issues, or the other side has removed the required zone delegation, preventing you from retrieving the zone information.

If you can neither connect through DNS or IP, ch  ...
 
Enable SMB 1.0 on Server 2012R2
edited by on June 3rd 2015, at 16:08
On Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2, SMB 1.0 (aka CIFS) is no longer enabled by default. This means clients that don't support at least SMB 2.0 (for Windows: everything predating Vista/2008) can no longer directly connect to a 8.1/2012R2 server, and instead, are presented with an error if they attempt to do so:

Error
The specified network name is no longer available.

You can re-enable SMB 1.0 support by installing the SMB 1.0/CIFS support feature on your server.

Some users reported that even after enabling this feature, they could not access shares on the server. Apparently, the SMB 1.0 driver is not loaded properly, because of a missing dependency on the Server service (aka LanmanServer).
  ...
 
NT4 workstations in a 2008 R2 domain
edited by on June 3rd 2015, at 15:47
As long as there are 2003 domain controllers in your network, your old NT4 workstations will be able to authenticate against your domain. As soon as you migrate those 2003's out of the network, you'll run into trouble. By default, Server 2008 R2 no longer accepts authentication requests from NT4 because they use cryptography that's too old and unsafe.

The best solution is to get rid of those NT4 machines, but if that's not possible, you can re-enable support for cryptography on your DCs through GPO.

Either edit the Default Domain Controller Policy group policy, or create a new GPO in the Domain Controllers OU.

Edit the GPO and navigate to: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templa  ...
 
OS supported SMB versions
edited by on June 3rd 2015, at 15:09
SMB (Server Message Block) is an application protocol, most commonly used for file and printer sharing. Although it was originally designed by IBM for use in OS/2, it has been adopted and improved upon by Microsoft as the primary protocol for file and printer sharing in their Windows for Workgroup. It has been in use ever since on Windows and a myriad of other OS flavours.

Although SMB is proprietary to Microsoft, SMB is also available on linux (through Samba), Apple (first Samba, then later, Apple's own SMBX), and a myriad of other OS vendors. In fact, Apple has replaced their own AFP in favour of SMB in their latest releases of Mac OSX. SMB has become the most commonly used protocol for f  ...
 
Exit Windows Explorer from the taskbar
edited by on June 3rd 2015, at 11:49

A bit of a hidden feature in Windows 8: you can actually "quit" Windows Explorer.

Right-click the (empty) taskbar while holding down Ctrl+Shift to reveal Exit Explorer as an additional menu item. Clicking it will then end Windows Explorer, leaving you with a blank screen, same as ending explorer.exe from the task manager.

You can then call up task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), and start Windows Explorer again (File > Run > explorer.exe).

 
Cachestore flush messages in SQL Server's ERRORLOG
edited by on June 2nd 2015, at 12:12
I got these messages in the error log of a SQL Server instance:

SQL Server has encountered 1 occurrence(s) of cachestore flush for the 'Bound Trees' cachestore (part of plan cache) due to some database maintenance or reconfigure operations.SQL Server has encountered 1 occurrence(s) of cachestore flush for the 'SQL Plans' cachestore (part of plan cache) due to some database maintenance or reconfigure operations.SQL Server has encountered 1 occurrence(s) of cachestore flush for the 'Object Plans' cachestore (part of plan cache) due to some database maintenance or reconfigure operations.

I also saw messages about starting a certain database, even though the instance itself remained running. T  ...
 
Disable Ask.com offer when updating Java
edited by on May 29th 2015, at 14:51

For some time now, installing/updating Java prompts you to install the Ask.com toolbar and search page. After installation, this is offered each time you install a new update of Java, which can be very annoying. A somewhat undocumented feature is that you can disable these offers from the Java Control Panel, preventing future updates from prompting you to install this thing.

  1. Open the Java Control Panel from the Windows Control Panel.
  2. Click the tab Advanced, scroll all the way to the bottom.
    There, under the Miscellaneous section, check Suppress sponsor offer when installing or updating Java.
 
Completely disable Java Updates (Java 7 and 8)
edited by on May 29th 2015, at 13:24
The old method of disabling Java updates through the registry or GPO, mentioned in this article is no longer valid for Java 7 (1.7) and 8 (1.8), nor does it prevent the UAC prompt from appearing when the updater runs in the background. The method explained here is a better, more up-to-date solution to completely disabling Java updates from running, and includes the required registry change to stop the updater from running, preventing the UAC prompt from ever appearing.

Disabling Java update from control panel is not as straight forward as it seems to be. Java update can only be disabled with administrative rights, so you need to run the Java control panel elevated. Since you can't do this t  ...
 
Completely disable Java Update (Java 6 only!)
edited by on May 29th 2015, at 12:46
If you completely want to disable Java Update (which is especially useful on Remote Desktop Servers), you have make a few adjustments to the registry.

EDIT (2015-05-29): this method is depecrated, and only applies to Java 1.6 on Windows XP or older. Only the alternate method is still valid as this prevents the updater program from running.

To disable Java Update, navigate to the key (32-bit and 64-bit differs):

32-bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy

64-bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy

Find the value EnableJavaUpdate and set it to 0. This will disable Java Update in the Control Panel.

To prevent the update check  ...
 
Decommission an enterprise Certificate Authority from your environment
edited by on May 28th 2015, at 14:19
 
Setting Java compiler compliance level (how to compile for older JREs)
edited by on May 28th 2015, at 12:10
You can compile for older versions of the JRE by setting the compiler target compliance level. This allows you to generate class files that are usable on older versions of the JRE as well as the current one.

From your IDE, you will be able to select the compliance level, but if you're compiling manually using javac, this can be done by setting the appropiate command line parameters: -source and -target.

For example, to compile for JRE 1.6, do this:

javac -source 1.6 -target 1.6 MyClass.java

A quick explanation:

-source sets the source compatibility to the specified version, and ensures that your code is usable on the specified JRE.

-target specifies the compliance level o  ...
 
Circumvent Java's "unreachable statement" compiler error
edited by on May 28th 2015, at 11:39

For debugging purposes, I often prematurely abort a function by adding a return statement in the middle of it. With most compilers this works flawlessly, accept with Java...

The Java compiler bums out with an unreachable statement error, and won't allow you to compile a class until all code is reachable within a function.

Luckily, you can trick the compiler by adding an if-statement that's always true:

if (1==1) return;

This way, as the return is supposedly conditional, and the compiler doesn't consider the result of an if-statement, it is tricked into believing the following code is still reachable.

 
Configuring NIS on RedHat (server and client)
edited by on May 28th 2015, at 11:17

A nice article about how to set up NIS on Red Hat linux: http://bradthemad.org/tech/notes/redhat_nis_setup.php.

 
Can't log on after changing machine account password in mixed 2012R2 and 2003 AD
edited by on May 28th 2015, at 10:46

When attempting to log on with a domain account on a computer joined to a domain that has both 2012R2 and 2003 domain controllers, you may encounter the following error:

Error message
unknown username or bad password

Additionally, an Event ID 4 on Source: Kerberos is logged. You can only log on using local accounts.

Solution

Mixed 2012R2 and 2003 AD environments require hotfix 2989971 to be installed on every 2012R2 DC. See the KB for a full explanation.

The hotfix requires Update 1 (2919355) to be installed first. The hotfix is also included in update rollup 2984006.

 
showing posts tagged with 'software'
 
 
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