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Manual configuration of Office 365 in Outlook
edited by on March 4th 2014, at 13:03
In normal circumstances, Outlook would configure itself using a procedure called Autodiscovery: all server settings and logon names would be configured by downloading configuration settings from a certain site, eliminating the requirement to know any server settings. Office 365 also makes extensive use of Autodiscovery for this and other purposes. In case of migrations, or when Autodiscovery is not available or does not apply (e.g. Outlook 2007), you can also manually configure your Office 365 account. Although this used to be pretty straight-forward, since they moved to Exchange 2013, manual configuration of Outlook has become a bit more complex.

Since its upgrade to Exchange 2013, Office   ...
 
Quake 4 on modern hardware
edited by on February 20th 2014, at 00:23

There are some issues with Quake 4 on modern video cards. Even with Ultra Quality enabled, the graphics still looks awful: textures are at their lowest quality, shaders and shadows are missing, etc.

The problem can be resolved by editing q4baseQuake4Config.cfg in your game directory, and overwriting these values:

seta image_ignoreHighQuality "0"
seta image_cacheMegs "512"
seta image_downSize "0"

Also, for Windows 8 and 8.1, you may have to enable compatibility mode on the Quake4.exe and enable Disable display scaling on high DPI settings. This ensures the game display fits your monitor properly.

 
Pointless: ClickYes software...
edited by on February 18th 2014, at 11:48

Found this online: ClickYes software. Don't install!

It's supposed to automatically click Yes when a program uses Outlook to send e-mail. In my opinion, it's a very useless piece of software as one could simply disable the prompt in Outlook, or better, install a proper antivirus.

 
Cannot configure Remote Desktop Connection settings through RWW
edited by on February 14th 2014, at 09:54

If you're running Internet Explorer 10 or later, you may get this error when trying to log on to a computer using RDP through Remote Web Workplace:

You can resolve the issue by adding RWW to the Compatibility View list in Internet Explorer.

 
Add an existing user to the Windows SBS Console
edited by on February 14th 2014, at 09:33
If you have users that were created in AD but not through the SBS console, you'll notice they will not be present in the SBS console. This can be a nuisance for management purposes when you're used to using the SBS console for administering users, but it can also become a problem for some SBS functionality, such as the SBS POP3 Connector. There is a way for your users to be added to the SBS console without having to recreate them, though.

When querying the list of users, the SBS console in fact looks for a certain AD attribute inside each user. This attribute, when set, will enable listing in the SBS console. So, by setting the attribute, you will in fact "import" the us  ...
 
Add an RDS server in Remote Web Workplace
edited by on February 14th 2014, at 09:31

You can add RDS servers to the list of computers in Remote Web Workplace, making them available to anyone with access to RWW. The process is simple, requires no reboot and is immediately active.

  1. Fire up regedit.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Microsoft\SmallBusinessServer.
  3. Add a new key called RemoteUserPortal.
  4. Under the new key, create a MultiString value called TsServerNames. Edit the value and insert the name (FQDN or NBN) of your RDS server. If you have more than one, add them on separate lines.

Note that this will only work if your RDS server is inside the SBSServers OU or a sub-OU (i.e. you're allowed to create other OU's inside the SBSServers OU).

 
Mysterious VSS errors with Windows Server Backup
edited by on February 13th 2014, at 12:12
If for some mysterious, unknown reason, your backup suddenly stops working and throws VSS errors, it's usually a good idea to check the following:

If your server is an SBS 2008 or 2011, and have installed updates, you may have to reconfigure Sharepoint:
WSB fails on SBS 2011 after updating Sharepoint (0x800423f0 or 0x800423f3).

If you get errors about VSS failing to create a snapshot, and you have not changed anything on your server recently, it's a good idea to check the presence of a lot of old shadow copies, taking up space. Although old copies will be purged automatically, the VSS Writer doesn't wait around for it, and fails the backup.
So try deleting shadow copies or increase the sh  ...
 
Intel Pro 1000/MT Quad Network Adapter on Windows Server 2012
edited by on February 11th 2014, at 13:52

To get this card running on Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2, you need this driver:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm.aspx?httpDown=http://downloadmirror.intel.com/18720/eng/PROWinx64.exe&lang=eng&Dwnldid=18720

Newer versions no longer seem to support this card.

 
Enable remote WMI access in Windows Firewall
edited by on February 5th 2014, at 16:45

Run this command in an elevated Powershell to enable remote WMI access:

Enable-NetFirewallRule -Name WMI-RPCSS-In-TCP,WMI-WINMGMT-In-TCP,WMI-WINMGMT-Out-TCP,WMI-ASYNC-In-TCP
 
Accessing P212 RAID Ctrl BIOS on HP Proliant ML110 G6
edited by on February 5th 2014, at 13:01
Newer generations of HP Proliant servers (I had this with an ML110 G6) no longer show I/O controller messages directly on screen. Instead, they are masked by a graphical status screen.

Not having these messages also means you won't know when you have to hit that certain key (F8) to get into the RAID controller's configuration BIOS, which can be problematic.

To get out of the graphical status screen and see all the I/O messages, you can hit Space on your keyboard during startup. For me, this usually did not work right away, and I had to hit the key multiple times before it got out of the status screen.

When done correctly, you'll notice the I/O messages and intialisation messages of the RA  ...
 
Default Programs Editor
edited by on February 3rd 2014, at 08:39

A handy tool to edit file associations, default program handlers, and autoplay handlers:

http://defaultprogramseditor.com/

And best of all, it's free!

 
Outlook 2013 configures Micro Office 64-bit Components 2013 each time on RDS
edited by on January 29th 2014, at 08:57
Users of Microsoft Office 2013 32-bit may experience the following behaviour on a 2008R2, 2012 or 2012R2 RDS server: each time a user starts Outlook 2013, a window is briefly shown with the message:

MessageConfiguring Microsoft Office 64-bit Components 2013

The message appears for restricted users and administrators alike, but there's no apparent effect that Outlook is impaired in functionality.

To resolve the matter, you need to install the Windows Search Service role (found under File Services; PS: Search-Service). As soon as this role is installed and its services running, the message will no longer appear. A reboot is not required.

The components it configures are necessary to link t  ...
 
Debugging tools for Windows (Windbg)
edited by on January 23rd 2014, at 10:28

The Debugging tools for Windows (a.k.a. Windbg) for Windows 8.1 can still be downloaded separately. Although it's now part of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK), you can still download the Windows 8.1 SDK Installer and select only the debugging tools. It's an about 180MB download (without the symbols).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852365

 
Physical location of NETLOGON share
edited by on January 10th 2014, at 13:05

The NETLOGON folder is in fact a subfolder of the SYSVOL directory. Unless this location is changed, you can find it here:

C:\WINDOWS\sysvol\*yourdomain*\scripts

(replace *yourdomain* with the DNS name of your Windows domain)

 
Allow to send e-mail from external e-mail address in Exchange
edited by on January 8th 2014, at 14:34

To allow an Exchange user to send from an external e-mail address, perform the following steps:

  1. Create a Mail Contact with the correct external e-mail address in AD and in Exchange.
  2. Open Exchange Management Shell and set up the permissions: 
    Get-MailContact MyUser@MyExternalDomain.com | Add-ADPermission -User MyUser@MyLocalDomain -AccessRights ExtendedRight -ExtendedRights "Send As"
    Replace the first e-mail address with the external one, the second part contains the user you wish to assign the permission to.
 
Completely disable time synchronisation in VMware
edited by on January 8th 2014, at 12:34
Even though you've unchecked the time synchronisation checkbox in VMware Tools, synchronisation may still occur. Particularly when a certain action is performed, such as a power-off/power-on, suspend/resume, snapshot handling, etc., time synchronisation will still occur.

To complete disable time synchronisation, even during the events mentioned, you have to add additional parameters to the VMware VM configuration. There are two ways to do this.

Note that you need to have the machine powered off before you can do these changes.

Use a text editor to directly edit the .vmx-file, adding the required parameters:

tools.syncTime = "0"time.synchronize.continue = "0"time.synchronize.restore = "0"  ...
 
RDS shadowing in 2012 R2 (no scenario deployment)
edited by on January 8th 2014, at 12:13
Remote Desktop Services shadowing is back with 2012 R2 after a leave of absence in regular 2012. However, for this to work out of the box, you need to have the scenario-based RDS deployment, which installs a whole bunch of stuff even when unwanted.

If you've opted for the roles-based installation of RDS Session Host (which is what makes your server into an RDS server), you're missing out on a whole lot of management tools, including the ability to shadow. Luckily, there are a few workarounds (using CLI) which provides us with the necessary things to perform shadowing.

Shadowing requires version 8.1 of the RDS client, so if you're not running Windows 8.1 or 2012 R2 on which you want to do t  ...
 
Allow RDS shadowing without consent through GPO
edited by on January 8th 2014, at 11:55

When performing RDS shadowing, by default, the user whose session is being shadowed has to consent to viewing and/or controlling his/her session. This behaviour can be changed with a group policy.

In your group policy (local or through domain), navigate to:

Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host\Connections

Find the policy called Set rules for remote control of Remote Desktop Services user sessions and configure it:

 
Allow non-administrators to do RDS shadowing
edited by on January 8th 2014, at 11:42

By default, only users with local admin rights on an RDS server can do session shadowing on that server.

To allow a particular user or group to allow shadowing, run this from a command prompt on the RDS server:

wmic /namespace:\\root\CIMV2\TerminalServices PATH Win32_TSPermissionsSetting WHERE (TerminalName="RDP-Tcp") CALL AddAccount "domain\group",2

In the command, replace domain\group with settings of your own. It's recommended to create a group specific for the job (e.g. RDS Shadowing) so you can run this command only once, and then add users to the group to allow them to shadow.

 
Installing ROK licenses on VMware
edited by on December 16th 2013, at 16:06

Before installing ROK licenses on your virtual machines on VMware, be sure to allow SMBios reflection of the host to the VM's. Otherwise, authorization will fail with a This system is unsupported message.

To do this, go to the settings of your newly created VM. Click the tab Configuration, then click General, then the button Configuration Parameters. Add a new row:

SMBIOS.reflectHost = TRUE

 
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