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Triggering SCSI UNMAP in Windows
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00

You can easily trigger SCSI UNMAP in Windows via PowerShell:

Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -ReTrim -Verbose
 
Setting display resolution on Windows Server Core
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00

On a Windows Server with GUI, you can use the traditional method of setting the display resolution but as there's no Control Panel nor Settings app on Windows Server Core, the only way is through Powershell with the Set-DisplayResolution cmdlet.

Set-DisplayResolution -Width 1024 -Height 768

The cmdlet above sets the resolution to 1024x768. It will prompt you to accept the change, if you don't want that, append -Force parameter.

To get the current display resolution, you can use the Get-DisplayResolution cmdlet.

 
Powershell fix for Unable to resolve package source 'https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2/'
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
When installing Powershell modules from the gallery, you may run into the following error, particularly on older versions of Windows (even Windows 10):

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Install-Module -Scope AllUsers -Name module-nameWARNING: Unable to resolve package source 'https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2/'.PackageManagement\Install-Package : No match was found for the specified search criteria and module name 'module-name'. Try Get-PSRepository to see all available registered module repositories.

The most common reason for this (aside of having some other issue with internet access) is that Powershell may still be using TLS 1.0, which is no longer supported by Powershell Gallery.

To   ...
 
FortiClient refuses to (re)-install with "no updates found" message
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
I recently ran into an issue where my FortiClient app on macOS no longer worked and I had to reinstall it. Unfortunately, if the installer detects it is already installed, it refuses to install and instead, simply attempts to update it, concludes there's no new version, and ends with the message "No updates found". The official solution is to use the FortiClient Uninstaller app, which can also be found in the /Applications, but if that's no option, you're seemingly stuck.

Fortunately, there's an easy way out by manually removing the app files, then rerunning the installer.

First, using Finder, completely remove the following apps (remove and remove from Bin):

FortiClient

FortiC  ...
 
Full restore from Time Machine does not restore Launchpad layout
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
I recently ran into an issue during a full restore of a Time Machine backup where the Launchpad layout would not be restored, and instead returned to a default layout. If you're like me and have put a lot of effort in customizing the layout, it's a bummer having to do all the work again, especially since one would expect a full restore from Time Machine actually restores *everything* (but that's discussion for another thread, I guess).

At first, I assumed Time Machine didn't back up everything but, as it turns out, the files are present but not restored during a full restore operation. Luckily, there's a way recover this manually. You can also do this if for some reason Launchpad is corrupt  ...
 
Turn off the new Outlook Experience (disable Coming Soon)
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
In an organization you may not want to get prompts to try out the new Outlook Preview versions. Luckily, there's a way to turn this off, either through GPO or through a registry key, which can be distributed to your users.

If you're using the latest Administrative Templates for Office, you can find the setting under User Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Outlook 2016\Outlook Options\Other, where you can enable the Disable Preview Place setting.

Alternatively, add the following DWORD-value:

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General

DWORD-value: DisablePreviewPlace, set its value to 1.

Note that the above only disables the user p  ...
 
VMs in Already Used status in VMware Horizon View
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
In VMware Horizon View VDI, when using floating pools with instant clones, you may run across a problem where VMs get the "Already Used" status after users log off. The VM remains unavailable for further use and does not get deleted or refreshed.

The reason for this usually is that some process is blocking the refresh/delete operation, causing the VM to remain unusable and powered on to allow a system administrator to investigate the issue. If this is not desired (e.g., the reason for the blockage is known but cannot be resolved immediately), there is a policy which can be set to allow for automatic clean up of these "dirty" VMs.

The attribute is called pae-DirtyVmPolic  ...
 
Troubleshooting DNS updates in AD via Event logs
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
To troubleshoot issues with DNS dynamic updates (e.g., certain Active Directory-joined Windows servers not properly registering their hostnames in DNS), there's an easy way to troubleshoot via the DNS Server's audit log, where DNS updates are logged. To properly filter the log for certain IP addresses or hostnames, you'll need to use custom XML filters to properly filter on the contents of the log entries because of the way the events are logged and standard filters don't provide the proper filtering.

The audit log can be found in the Event Viewer at Applications and Services logs → Microsoft → Windows → DNS-Server → Audit. Once the log is open, click on Action → Fi  ...
 
Failed to release DHCP lease in Windows Server 2022 Core
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
There's a known issue when attempting to configure a network adapter to set a static IP address through SConfig on a freshly installed Windows Server 2022 Core. Upon attempting to configure the IP address, it will fail with the following error message:

Error
Setting NIC to static IP...

Failed to release DHCP lease.

Result code: 83
Method name: ReleaseDHCPLease

You can manually work around the issue by configuring the IP address using Powershell directly:

First, list all network adapters present to find the correct one:Get-NetAdapter

You can reference by Name (InterfaceAlias) or by ifIndex (InterfaceIndex).

Next, remove any existing (APIPA) addresses:Remove-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias  ...
 
Enable auditing on Network Policy Server
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
By default, audit of success and failure is enabled on Network Policy Server. This will log authentication attempts in the Security event log (filter on event IDs 6272 and 6273). If for some reason, it is not enabled, you can manually enable it via command-line (or Powershell).To view the current audit policy settings, run:

auditpol /get /subcategory:"Network Policy Server"

If it says No auditing, you can enable it by running:

auditpol /set /subcategory:"Network Policy Server" /success:enable /failure:enable

Note that a group policy can override this behaviour. Settings in GPO are located here: Computer Configuration → Policies → Windows Settings → Secu  ...
 
Backup errors in Veeam for domain controllers after installing/upgrading SentinelOne to 23.2.3.358
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
There is a known issue with SentinelOne Agent 23.2.3.358 installed on a domain controller, which causes backups in Veeam for those machines to fail. The following error is displayed:

Error
Processing SERVER Error: VSSControl: -805306334 Backup job failed. Cannot create a shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data. Cannot prepare the [NTDS] data to a subsequent restore operation. Cannot process NTDS data. Updating BCD failed. Cannot execute [SetIntegerElement] method of [\\SERVER\root\wmi:BcdObject.Id="{cd12ab87-1a23-12f3-ba7c-dc9876b01357}",StoreFilePath=""]. COM error: Code: 0xd0000022

This is caused by the boot protection feature of SentinelOne. One possible   ...
 
Request a SAN certificate on an Enterprise CA (AD CS) using CertReq
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
You can use the CertReq command line tool to request SAN SSL certificates. This can be useful where you have an internal (web)server which also needs to be available using another (alternate) DNS name.

First create a template file you can use, specifying the required parameters. Save it with a name, e.g. request.inf and save it to a temporary (work) folder (or simply your desktop):

;----------------- request.inf -----------------[Version]Signature="$Windows NT$"[NewRequest]Subject = "CN=SERVER1.domain.com, OU=Some OU, O=Organization, L=City, S=State, C=US";Subject = "CN=SERVER1.domain.com"KeySpec = 1KeyLength = 2048; Can be 2048, 4096, 8192, or 16384.; Larger   ...
 
Private network profile on domain controller (instead of Domain)
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
It can happen that the network profile on a domain controller switches to Private, usually after changing network settings or a network adapter. The network profile is then set to Private with no way to switch to Domain.

The first thing you can attempt is to restart the Network Location Awareness service. This service is responsible for setting the network profile depending on several parameters. It can sometimes get it wrong (usually because of startup order).

If restarting NLA helps, then there's an easy registry fix to permanently resolve it. This is the preferred method over manually configuring service dependencies in the registry, which is more complex and prone to errors. While the   ...
 
Create bootable Debian USB on Mac
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
While there are a lot of ways and tools to write bootable ISOs to USB on a Mac, the most easiest is in fact by using the "linux" method, a perfectly valid option using internal command-line tools:

You'll need an USB device that's large enough. For netinst, 1 GB would be sufficient. Make sure that the contents are kept safe if needed, as the USB device will be wiped.

If you haven't done so already, you can download the proper ISO file for Debian from this page: https://www.debian.org/distrib/. Download only from a legitimate mirror.

Insert the USB device and open up Terminal. We need to verify the device identifier of the USB device as we will need this later. This will be in the  ...
 
Set Microsoft SQL Server memory limits via command-line (sqlcmd)
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
You can set the Microsoft SQL Server memory limits via command-line using sqlcmd. This is useful if you do not have SSMS available.

Connect to the server using sqlcmd. If you are running locally with the default instance, this is as easy as running the following from the command prompt:

sqlcmd -S

Note that you will need to have sysadmin permissions to be able to make the changes.

Run the following commands to set the minimum and maximum memory limits:

EXEC sys.sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;GORECONFIGURE;GOEXEC sys.sp_configure 'min server memory', 1024;GOEXEC sys.sp_configure 'max server memory', 4096;GORECONFIGURE;GO

In the example above, we set the minimum memory to 1 GB (1  ...
 
Create an ISO from a folder in linux using mkisofs
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00

The equivalent of creating a disk image from a folder like in macOS can be achieved in linux as well. You'll need the genisoimage package, which will install the mkisofs command. After that, you can easily create ISO files from a folder's contents. The additional flags, such as -J make the ISO Windows-compatibel.

mkisofs -J -l -R -V "Label CD" -iso-level 4 -o output.iso input_directory
 
Initialize and partition a new disk via diskpart
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00

On Windows Server Core installations, you don't have Disk Management available. But you can quickly initialize and partition a new disk via diskpart. Here's a quick reference to the necessary commands in order.

  1. select disk 1
  2. attributes disk clear readonly
  3. online disk
  4. select disk 1
  5. clean
  6. convert gpt
  7. create partition primary
  8. format quick fs=ntfs label="disk label" unit=64k
  9. assign letter="E"
 
Editing (default) room calendar permissions in Exchange
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
It is possible that room mailboxes have their default permissions set to show only availability, but sometimes you may want to allow users to see what has been booked (title of the meeting). You can either set this through Outlook but this is tedious as you'll need full mailbox access for this to work. However, admins can also set this via Powershell (for M365, load the Exchange Online module).

To view the current permissions:

Get-MailboxFolderPermission my-meeting-room:\calendar

To set the permissions to show limited details by default:

Set-MailboxFolderPermission -AccessRights LimitedDetails -Identity my-meeting-room:\calendar -User default

Optionally, if you wish to know who booked t  ...
 
How to reset the sa account on Microsoft SQL Server
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00
Provided you still have administrative access to the server itself, and the server is running in mixed mode (i.e. you can actually use local SQL logins), you can perform the steps below to reset the password. Note that this will result in some downtime as the SQL Server service will have to be restarted in single user mode.

First, determine the service name (can be done via services.msc): if it is the default instance, it's usually called MSSQLSERVER. If an instance name was specified, it is usually MSSQLSERVER$instance-name. E.g. if the instance is called MYSWEETAPP, the service name would be MSSQLSERVER$MYSWEETAPP.

Open an administrative (elevated) command prompt or Powershell:

First, s  ...
 
Sync vLCM updates fails with error 'integrity.fault.HostPatchInvalidVendorCode'
by on January 1st 1970, at 01:00

When trying to sync updates in vCenter LifeCycle Manager, it may fail and throw the following error:

Error: ‘integrity.fault.HostPatchInvalidVendorCode’

It is usually followed by a variety of error messages, such as: invalid vendor code XXX in patch metadata.

If there are no customizations in your vCenter, you can easily fix this by resetting the vLCM update database, as per KB2147284. Run the following commands from a shell in vCenter:

service-control --stop vmware-updatemgr
/usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/bin/updatemgr-utility.py reset-db
rm -rf /storage/updatemgr/patch-store/*
service-control --start vmware-updatemgr
 
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