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Reset a HP 1810-24(G) to factory defaults
edited by on November 25th 2015, at 10:58

Resetting a HP 1810-24 or -24G to factory defaults is easy:

  1. With the switch powered on, using both ends of a paperclip (or two separate paperclips), press and hold down the Reset and Clear buttons.
  2. Release the Reset button, but keep the Clear button held down.
  3. When all three mode LEDs (Act, FDx, and Spd) begin to blink, release the Clear button as well. When the self-test completes, the switch will be reset to factory defaults. Its IP address will be obtained through DHCP, or if there's no DHCP, it will be set to 192.168.2.10. The password will be blank.
 
Block Office 2013 CTR (Office365) from updating to 2016
edited by on November 23rd 2015, at 10:47
You can block Office 2013 Click-To-Run (CTR) from automatically updating to 2016 through a policy (or registry if you're not in a domain).

If you have the Office 2013 Group Policy templates installed on your domain controller, you can use them to set a policy to disable automatic updating.

You can find the setting at:

Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Microsoft Office 2013 (Machine) → Updates

Set Enable Automatic Upgrade to Disabled.

You can also disable the upgrade by manually adjusting the registry.

In regedit, navigate to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\common\officeupdate

Create a registry value:

Type: DWORD

N  ...
 
Stopping users from installing Google Chrome
edited by on November 18th 2015, at 12:44

From an IT management point-of-view, Google Chrome does not play nice: users that have limited rights on the computer system they work on (a standalone computer or on a Terminal server) can simply install Google Chrome without an admin's consent, totally bypassing any kind of approval. Luckily, this can be countered by setting up software restrictions through a group policy.

I found this article explaining how: http://windowsitpro.com/windows/how-stop-users-installing-google-chrome

 
Properly disable Welcome to Office messages through GPO
edited by on November 18th 2015, at 10:47
In order to properly disable the Welcome to Office prompt, there are several settings that need to be configured in GPO before this takes effect. Most articles online tell you about just one setting that needs to be changed, but this is unfortunately not enough. The Welcome to Office prompt does more than just configuring updates, it also sets up the "Customer Experience Improvement Program" (CEIP) and Office Diagnostics. Without configuring these settings in your group policy, the prompt just appears anyway.

To set this up, you'll need the Administrative Templates for your Office version:

Office 2010

Office 2013

Office 2016

How to use these is out of the scope of this article  ...
 
Setting the background on a Yealink T46(G)
edited by on November 16th 2015, at 12:55

The specifications for the background on a Yealink T46(G) can be found in the Administrator Guide:

  • Supported formats: .jpg, .png, .bmp
  • Maximum filesize: 5 MB
  • Resolution: 480x272
 
Configure basic SNMP on Sonicwall
edited by on November 9th 2015, at 10:54
You can quickly and easily enable SNMP on a Sonicwall for monitoring purposes. The instructions below are for SonicOS Enhanced, and has been tested on a NSA 2600 (although configuration should be similar on other models).

Log on to the Sonicwall through the web interface.

In the menu on the left, navigate to System → SNMP.

Check the Enable SNMP check box and click Accept.



Click the Configure button and verify/change the Get Community Name. By default, it is set to public. If you made changes, click OK.

By default, SNMP does not listen on any interface, so what's left is to enable it on one or more interfaces, depending on which interfaces, SNMP is required. Navigate to Network &r  ...
 
Cannot configure maintenance plans due to 'Agent XPs' not enabled
edited by on November 5th 2015, at 13:10
When attempting to create a maintenance plan in SQL Server Studio, or you are attempting to view the SQL Agent settings, you may get an error about Agent XPs not being enabled. Agent XPs (Agent eXtended Procedures) is a requirement for SQL Agent to be configured through SQL Server Studio, regardless of whether the SQL Agent is running or not. This also includes the creation and modification of maintenance plans.

To enable Agent XPs, run this query on the instance (either through SQL Server Studio or osql):

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;GORECONFIGURE;GOsp_configure 'Agent XPs', 1;GORECONFIGUREGO

The change is effective immediately (does not require a server stop/start). Note that  ...
 
Set/clear AD attributes from Powershell
edited by on November 5th 2015, at 11:03

Sometimes you may want to set or clear attributes of an AD object (e.g. the extensionAttributes of an AD user) through Powershell.

To set an attribute:

Set-ADUser -Identity "AnyADUser" -Add @{extensionAttribute15="SomeValue"}

To clear an attribute (i.e. unset the attribute):

Set-ADUser -Identity "AnyADUser" -Clear extensionAttribute15
 
Get Office 365 cloud-only or AD-only users through Powershell
edited by on November 5th 2015, at 10:49

The Office365 Admin portal clearly shows which users are synced to AD and which are cloud only. In Powershell, this is less clear. To find out which are cloud-only, you need to check the value of LastDirSyncTime. If it is empty, then the user was never synced from AD, and thus, is a cloud-only user.

Log on to your Office 365 tenant through Powershell, then run:

Get cloud-only users:

Get-MsolUser -All | Where { $_.LastDirSyncTime -eq $null }

Get synchronized-only users:

Get-MsolUser -All | Where { $_.LastDirSyncTime -ne $null }
 
Fix Outlook 2010 (and newer) Tasks Jump lists
edited by on November 4th 2015, at 15:04
Outlook 2010 and newer have a "Tasks" Jump list, allowing you to quickly create new items by right-clicking the Outlook icon in the taskbar.



Sometimes, the jump list doesn't work properly or disappears altogether, usually after updates or a re-install of Office/Outlook. There are two workarounds to resolve this, both through the registry:

Unpin the Outlook icon from the taskbar.

Exit Outlook.

Open regedit.

Navigate to the key:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook

Delete the registry value LastUILanguage. You can optionally rename it to have a backup.

Start Outlook again.

Re-pin the Outlook icon to the taskbar.

Replace the number in blue with the numeri  ...
 
Get Exchange version information (Powershell)
edited by on October 29th 2015, at 13:07

You can easily get the Exchange version for all Exchange servers in your domain with this one-liner. Run it from an Exchange Management Shell.

Get-ExchangeServer | Select Name,AdminDisplayVersion,Edition,ServerRole

The following information is displayed:

Name : the server name
AdminDisplayVersion :
the version and build of the server
You can cross-reference this with the Exchange version matrix to find out which updates are installed.
Edition : can be Standard or Enterprise
ServerRole : the roles on the server specified by Name
 
Microsoft Exchange version matrix
edited by on October 29th 2015, at 13:05

These version matrix pages (from Microsoft) contain the build numbers (how to check?) of Exchange, matched against their update "names" (RU, CU numbers), their release dates, and a link to the KB containing the update download:

 
Clear all port statistics on a Brocade SAN switch
edited by on October 29th 2015, at 11:08

You can quickly clear all port statistics on a Brocade SAN switch. Log on to the switch through CLI and run either:

slotstatsclear

You can also use portstatsclear -i portnumber to clear individual ports or port ranges. To clear all ports on a 24-ports switch:

portstatsclear -i 0-23
 
Install SQL Server Client Tools on a SQL Server Failover Cluster
edited by on October 28th 2015, at 09:58
Client tools (such as SQL Server Management Studio) are shared features that are installed on every node of a failover cluster. When a node is added, they get installed on the new node automatically. In case the tools haven't been installed before, you can install them without downtime. By default, the regular installation procedure installs the management tools on the entire cluster (i.e. all the nodes).

On older versions of SQL Server (2008, 2008 R2), installation of the client tools on a node may fail during the pre-installation checks, right after the feature selection. The check states that an instance is already present on the node, of course, stating the obvious.

Apparently, this is  ...
 
Cannot unmount/delete a VMFS datastore in VMWare because of Storage I/O Control (SIOC)
edited by on October 26th 2015, at 14:00
When attempting to unmount or delete a VMFS datastore on a cluster, you may get the message that the resource is still in use, even though all the VMs have been moved off the datastore, or that Storage I/O Control (SIOC) is enabled on it (usually when attempting to unmount).

To circumvent the issue, temporarily stop SIOC, unmount/delete the datastore, then start SIOC again. If an unplanned Permanent Device Loss (PDL) is invoked when Storage IO control enabled on a storage device (iSCSI device or FC), the ESX host cannot remount the VMFS datastore, and also the steps below are then also required in order to be able to remount the datastore.

On each of the ESX hosts (if there's more than one  ...
 
Move the quorum disk in a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster
edited by on October 19th 2015, at 14:06
In a Windows Failover Cluster, you can move roles from one node to another node using the Failover Cluster Manager. Unfortunately, the GUI in 2008 R2 does not provide a way to move the quorum disk to another node. For this, you need to use the cluster command-line tool. This tool allows complete management of the cluster and its roles from the command-line, and this also includes moving the quorum disk.

Note that the cluster command-line tool no longer exist on 2012 and up. In that case, you need to use the Powershell cmdlets for Failover Cluster.

Each 2008R2 failover cluster comes default with two resource groups that are always present:

Available Storage contains all storage that hasn't  ...
 
AD Sync does not sync password changes to Office365 (Event ID 611)
edited by on October 19th 2015, at 12:59
When users change their passwords of their on-premise AD account, these changes are not replicated to Office365 (Azure AD). In the event log of the server running AD Sync, event 611 is logged:

Event ID 611
Password synchronization failed for domain: constoso.com.

Details:
System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.LdapException: The operation was aborted because the client side timeout limit was exceeded.

To resolve the issue, a registry setting has to be changed on the server running AD Sync, followed by a reboot:

On the server running AD Sync, open regedit.

Navigate to the key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ldap

Set the value of LdapClientIntegrity to 0.

Restart the se  ...
 
Office 365 AD Sync: force a full password re-sync
edited by on October 19th 2015, at 12:59
When running an Office 365 with Active Directory synchronisation from your on-premise domain, you may encounter the issue where passwords for one, some or all accounts do not sync anymore. This can particularly happen if changes were made to the configuration of the AD sync (such as change in OUs, change of rules, etc.).

If you're using Azure Active Directory Sync tool (old method) for synchronisation, on the server running AD sync, start Powershell, then run these:

Import-Module DirSyncSet-FullPasswordSyncRestart-Service FIMSynchronizationService -Force

Run the following Powershell script on the server running Azure AD Sync Service or Azure AD Connect:

$adConnector = "contoso.com&  ...
 
Uninstall TrendMicro OfficeScan 10.5 without a password (i.e. reset the password)
edited by on October 15th 2015, at 11:03
To properly uninstall TrendMicro OfficeScan 10.5 and have forgotten the uninstall password, you can very easily change it to something familiar, assuming you have administrative permissions on the computer.

Locate and open the INI-file Ofcscan.ini. By default this is located at:%PROGRAMFILES%\Trend Micro\OfficeScan Client\Ofcscan.iniNote that on 64-bit, the default install path will probably be %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Trend Micro\...

Search for the line beginning with:Uninstall_Pwd=!CRYPT!364EB2Although the password is encrypted in a hash, you can quite easily replace the hash with another hash of a password you do know. You can use this MD5 hash generator for it.

In the configuration file, r  ...
 
Microsoft announces Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book
edited by on October 14th 2015, at 09:53
Microsoft has announced the next generation of their tablet: the Surface Pro 4. It features the new 6th generation Intel CPU, higher resolution, more storage, memory, and an improved (back-lit) Type Cover. Prices start at $899 in the US.

→ Surface Pro 4 specifications

Also from Microsoft, is its all-new Surface Book, a 13.5" hybrid ultrabook, and basically the direct competitor to Apple's Macbook. Featuring a high resolution (3000x2000), 6th gen Intel CPU, two full-size USB 3.0 ports, SD card, and much more. The i5/i7 models even come with nVidia GeForce graphics.

→ Surface Book specifications

With its sleek design, and powerful features, it is obvious that Microsoft is fi  ...
 
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