Archive for Tools – Page 3

Windows 10 RSAT Now Available

Microsoft released the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 10 on Aug-18-2015. This can only be installed on computers running the full release of Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise. The RSAT tool comes in both a 32-bit and 64-bit version.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45520

CCleaner and Microsoft Edge

Are you running Windows 10? Are you a CCleaner aficionado? CCleaner is a great program for cleaning up temp files that build up over time on your computer.

An upgrade to CCleaner (version 5.08.5308 at the time of this post) is needed to run properly with Windows 10 and the new Microsoft Edge browser.

When you do run CCleaner to clean, however, you may encounter the following pop up window message:

Microsoft Edge Cache Database needs to be closed to clean the Internet cache. Do you want CCleaner to close Microsoft Edge Cache Database?

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The reason for the error message, according to Piriform, is that the Microsoft Edge database is also used by other programs  or apps on your computer.

Now, you may be thinking, “I’ll just click on the ‘Do not show me this message again’” button.

Go ahead and try it. But my experience is that the box will show up again next time you run CCleaner.

But, before you get mad at Microsoft, if you use Google Chrome, you may already be familiar with a similar pop up window telling you that Google Chrome needs to be closed in order to clean the Internet cache.

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Roboform, Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge

I have used Roboform as my password manager solution for what seems like forever. But forever may be coming to an end.

I upgraded my business workstation and laptops over the weekend to Windows 10. Except for a video driver issue and a Bios update, the in-place migration went very smooth. And, for the most part, I’m loving Windows 10.

However …

I was looking forward to really testing out Microsoft Edge, which is the new browser software that Microsoft released along with Windows 10, and it is intended to eventually replace Internet Explorer.

But, according to this Roboform post, Microsoft Edge does not currently support “extensions”, and therefore Roboform will not work with the new browser. According to several websites, support for extensions will not be coming to Microsoft Edge until later this fall. Aarrgghh!!!! 

imageRoboform offers three workarounds …

  1. Make Internet Explorer 10 your default browser, rather than Microsoft Edge.
    Fortunately, Windows 10 comes with both Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer.

    To make IE your default browser, click Start –> Control Panel –> Default Programs –> Set your default programs –> locate Internet Explorer –> click “Set this program as default

  2. Use Firefox or Chrome as your default browser
  3. Or, if you open up a website from within Microsoft Edge, you can click on the “three dotted” icon on the top right, and then select to open that web page using Internet Explorer.

Windows Store App Won’t Open in Windows 8.1

imageRecently I installed some new Windows 8.1 computers, and joined them to the local domain. One of the users informed me that the Windows Store app wouldn’t work. It would just flash for a moment, sitting on the Windows Store “green screen”.

There are a ton of posts from people with this problem, and just as many “solutions”.

Most of the solutions involved making sure that the “ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES” group name had read access permission to some or all of the Windows Registry hives (example), and/or read access permission to the Users, Windows, and Program Files folders (example).

I wasn’t ready to make those types of changes.

After more research, I found several suggestions that utilized a single Powershell command to fix the issue. Now, that’s a solution I like!

David Dixon’s blog post on the solution was the first of these that I found, and also the clearest in explanation.

Here are the steps:

  • Open an elevated command prompt
  • Type or paste:
    powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\WinStore\AppxManifest.xml and press <Enter>.
  • Type or paste:
    start “” “ms-windows-store:” and press <Enter>. Be sure to include the quotes!

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In the feedback section of David’s blog page, there are several comments that offers a similar version of these steps for the Windows 10 Technical Preview. Once Windows 10 is released to the public, I will post those steps, if applciable.

SBS and Essentials External Backup Drives Compatibility List

I recently encountered an issue with an external drive connected to a SBS 2011 server. The backup had errored and the issue was with the external drive.

Finally, I was reminded about the Technet blog post on Windows Small Business Server – External Backup Drives Compatibility List. The post has two parts:

  • Guidelines on proper formatting requirements of the external drive, with an explanation of why 512 Bytes sectors are required.
  • List of external drives for a variety of vendors, with a rating table that indicates if it works on the various versions of SBS and Essentials 2012/R2.

The post also documents a simple command that you can use to check the sector size of your external drive. Be sure to do it from an elevated command prompt. The command is:

fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo X:

Here’s an example of the results:

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O365 Status Web Sites

Here are some useful web sites to check on the current status and outages for O365 —

Office 365 Down Detector: https://downdetector.com/status/office-365

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Office 365 Service Health Status: http://status.office365.com/

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Office 365 Twitter Status: https://twitter.com/office365status

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Remote command line to delete subfolders

This is a follow up to my post regarding 44,175 folders being created in a temp folder due to a bad definition file from Vipre/MAV.

The system in question had frozen up, and after we rebooted the server, I was not able to login using my normal remote control software (TeamViewer). But I was able to access the system from a remote command prompt.

That’s how I discovered the 44,175 folders. The question was: how do I delete all those sub folders?

A quick web search uncovered a usable solution, and after a test to verify it would work, I was ready to delete all those folders.

Here’s the command I used (obviously, enter the appropriate parent directory):

for /D %p in (c:\users\don\appdata\local\temp\*.*) do rmdir “%p” /s /q

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2012 R2 Essentials Fails to Integrate with O365

I have an existing client with a Windows 2012 R2 Essential server. I was migrating their email from a GoDaddy POP3/IMAP host over to Office 365. This was going to be my first opportunity to try out the O365 Integration Wizard that comes with the 2012 R2 Essentials dashboard.

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On May 23rd I set up their Office 365 accounts, setup the DNS records on GoDaddy, and then migrated their email to Office 365, all which went smoothly.

On May 26th I attempted to run the O365 Integration Wizard. After entering the O365 admin account and login info, it errors with this message: “There was an issue configuring the integration. Make sure the computer is connected to the internet and then try again.”

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I did a lot of web searches, and finally located several posts from people indicating that the error may be related to a corrupt or invalid PCNS.zip file:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dba06f4f-1011-4de3-946b-2a39718c2cc0/windows-server-2012-essentials-r2-and-office-365-integration?forum=winserveressentials#eb76b50e-6304-48b0-afef-b5fd79978ebf

What’s PCNS? It stands for Microsoft’s Password Change Notification Service which synchronizes user passwords in an enterprise environment.

I confirmed that this was the error by looking at the SharedServiceHost-EmailProvider Config.log file located at C:\Program Data\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs folder.

The suggested fix was to rename the existing PCNS folder and PCNS.zip file, then download a different PCNS.zip file, and then rerun the wizard. Initially it did not work for me, because I was manually unzipping the corrected PCNS.zip file before running the O365 Wizard. Finally it dawned on me to just download the zip file, and sure enough, the O365 Wizard unzipped it, and we finally had success!

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Reset WHS Backup Database

I still have several Microsoft Windows Home Servers (WHS) running in some customer offices. Had an issue where the backup database got corrupted, not allowing me to retrieve any backups. I tried many solutions, but none fixed the problem.

So, how do you wipe out the WHS backup database to essentially start clean?

What you will have found out is that there’s not an option for doing this from the WHS console. Yes, you “clean” the database, but that only removes backups older than your declared backup settings. And a “repair” does not do the trick.

So, I dusted off an old post (kudos to Jim Clarke) that will do exactly what we need – reset the current WHS backup database, and free up all the disk space previously used.

  • Use mstsc to login to the WHS Server
  • Open a command prompt (Start –> Run –> cmd)
    Type: net stop PDL
    Type: net stop whsbackup
  • Leave the command window open, as we will need it in a minute
  • Meanwhile, open up Windows Explorer and locate:
    D:\folders\{00008086-058D-4C89-AB57-A7F909A47AB4}
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  • Delete the contents of that folder – but DO NOT delete the folder itself!
  • Now go back to the command prompt window
    Type: net start whsbackup
    Type net start PDL
  • Jim notes that after doing this you will need to go to each workstation and either reinstall the WHS Connector software or run the Discover.exe program.

And, in case you are wondering, PDL is Microsoft’s Persistent Drive Letter service!

GodMode in Windows 7/8/10

Haven’t heard about GodMode? No, this is not a joke. There is a hidden method for getting access to virtually all of the Windows control panel apps and system functions – all on a single screen. Best of all, it works on Windows 7 / 8 /8.1 / 10 as well as Windows Server 2011/2012!

Warning: this does not work with prior versions of Windows. You risk locking up the Windows Explorer window if you try to do so.

It’s called God Mode.

Here’s how to enable it:

  1. Create a new folder on your desktop
    (Right click on your desktop, then click New –> Folder)
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  2. Name the new folder: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}  
    I advise copying and pasting the bold faced text to get it exactly right (including the period and braces)
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  3. Double click on the new folder, and voila … God Mode at your disposal!
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