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Friday, 20 January 2023

Move Outlook Navigation Toolbar Back to Bottom From Side

 In a recent update of Office 365 applications the Outlook toolbar that switches between email, calendar and contacts was moved from the bottom-left to the top-left of the main window.

Here's how to move it back.


  1. Open regedit

  2. Go to the following registry key
    Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentEcs\Overrides

    If you have the ‘Microsoft.Office.Outlook.Hub.HubBar’ string value and set it to ‘false’.
    Then click OK and restart Outlook.

    If  “Microsoft.Office.Outlook.Hub.HubBar” doesn’t exist, create it by right-clicking on Overrides in the left pane and selecting New, String Value then name it “Microsoft.Office.Outlook.Hub.HubBar”
    Set the value to 'false'

  3. Close and restart Outlook


Friday, 30 December 2022

Restoring an Azure VM to earlier disk state from backups (unmanaged disks)

Restore the disks from backup and use Storage Browser in the Azure Portal to place them where you want them, please note they will restore to the root of your Storage Account.

Open Cloud Shell in the Azure Portal and use the following commands to set variables, read the VM configuration, and update the VM configuration with the new OS disk location. 


# Variables for you to fill in

$ResourceGroup = 'RG-Classic'

$VMname = 'winclassic'


#Get the VM config to a variable

$VM = Get-AzVM –Name $VMname –ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroup


#Stop and deallocate the VM

Stop-AzVM –Name $VM.Name –ResourceGroupName $VM.ResourceGroupName –Force


#Swap out the OS disk using the VM variable

$VM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.Vhd.Uri = 'https://rgunmanageddisknew.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/rhclassic-os-2317.vhd' #example, use your new OS disk uri


#Update the VM configuration

Update-AzVM –VM $VM –ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroup


You can now verify the disk location has changed by clicking on the disk in the VM/Disks section and looking at the location.

Data disks can be swapped out within the Azure Portal GUI.


Tuesday, 2 August 2022

What is BTWifi-X and how to make your BT mobile automatically login to BTWifi

I've always wondered what BTWifi-X was for, you see it wherever there is a BT router. Turns out it's for the BTWifi app. 

The other day I was on the London Underground and saw there was free Wifi, once above ground I checked and BT mobile customers can follow some steps to get connected.

https://www.bt.com/help/mobile/getting-set-up/london-underground

  1. Make sure your wi-fi is switched on.
  2. Choose EE WiFi-Auto from the available networks.
  3. Once selected, change your EAP method from PEAP to SIM.
  4. Select Connect.

How about we combine the two. Yes! The method BT give for connecting to Wifi on the Underground also works for BTWifi-X as long as you have a BT SIM. A big advantage of this over the app is that it automatically connects you and seems quite reliable in the few weeks since I discovered this.



Friday, 29 July 2022

TLS Error in Jet Reports

Error: 

The data source is not properly configured for Office 365 authentication.

You are using TLS version 1.0, 1.1 and/or 3DES cipher which are depreciated to improve the security posture of Azure AD.

 


Solution:

After some back and forth we found the addition of the following reg keys resolved this. Run the following in an elevated PowerShell on the client computer.

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319' -Name 'SchUseStrongCrypto' -Value '1' -Type DWord

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319' -Name 'SchUseStrongCrypto' -Value '1' -Type Dword


 

Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Set Windows Power Mode to High Performance via CMD

 Run the following in CMD

powercfg.exe /setactive a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a


 

Tuesday, 10 May 2022

Replace AD user object and link back to 365 user #ImmutableID

 An odd situation occurred where I had to delete an AD user then recreate it and link it to the 365 user account.

Here are the steps.

  1. Take a note of the AD user details.
  2. Delete AD user
  3. Run ADSync
  4. The 365 user will have been deleted, un-delete the user on the 365 side.
  5. Create a new AD user with the same properties as the old one.
  6. In PowerShell: Connect-MsolService
  7. In PowerShell: get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName user@example.com | select ImmutableID
  8. Copy the ID given and keep just in case.
  9. On the AD server: make and run a PowerShell script with the following text

$Users=Get-ADUser -Filter *

function guidtobase64
{
param($str);
$g = new-object -TypeName System.Guid -ArgumentList $str;
$b64 = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($g.ToByteArray());
return $b64;
}
$ADUsersDump=$Users | Select SamAccountName,UserPrincipalName,@{Expression={(guidtobase64($_.ObjectGUID))}; Label="ImmutableID"}
$ADUsersDump | Export-CSV -Path C:\temp\ImmutableIDs.csv

 

  1. In PowerShell: set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName user@example.com -ImmutableId ""
  2. In PowerShell: Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName user@example.com -ImmutableId <ImmutableID from script output>
  3. Run ADSync
You should now see that the user in 365 is a synced user again.

Thursday, 14 April 2022

Useful commands for RDS Session Host servers

I recently had an issue where a user could not login, their session showed disconnected on the RDGateway but I could not log them out vis Server Manager, no session for the user was shown on the Session Host in Task Manager. I used the following commands to find the processes running under that user's account and end them. 

Some processes could not be ended but ending those I could allowed RDGateway to unregister the session and by denying logins to the host I was able to steer the user to another host.


To list the users logged in and obtain their Session ID

query session

To log off a session

logoff <Session ID>

To list all processes and find the Session ID related

query process *

To list processes and obtain the PID (process ID)

tasklist

To end a process

taskkill /F /PID <PID>

To log a user off from another server

Logoff <SessionID> /server:<hostname>


Wednesday, 3 November 2021

Stop Windows from sleeping via cmd.exe

To set the PC sleep time-out for AC power use the following.
powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 0


For monitors use the following.
powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 0



Tuesday, 26 October 2021

Office click-to-run 365, VL etc will not let you add an app if already run with excludes in the XML

 If you have previously excluded Office apps from your install you may find that re-running without them excluded does not install them.


It seems Office click-to-run keeps a record of the initial excluded apps in the registry.

Use regedit.exe to take a look in the following path for the 'O365<edition name>.ExcludedApps' key.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration

Remove any excluded apps and rerun the install.

Monday, 13 September 2021

Find the Recovery Model of all databases in MS SQL

 Run the following script to list the Recovery Model setting for all DBs in MSSQL


SELECT Name, DATABASEPROPERTYEX(Name,'RECOVERY') AS [Recovery Model] FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases

Friday, 11 June 2021

An odd one. Hyper-V cannot update the Integration Services Setup Disk image

 Datto reporting:

A Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS-Admin - Hyper-V-VMMS monitor in policy Windows: Role - Hyper-V Server was automatically disabled due to rate limiting.


Hunting this down in the event log (Admin log in Hyper-V-VMMS in Apps&Services logs/Microsoft/Windows) gives me:

The description for Event ID 19510 from source Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

%%2147942480

0x80070050

The locale specific resource for the desired message is not present



Eject the integration services ISO from all your VMs.

And the Event log gives you:

The Integration Services Setup Disk image was successfully updated.

Wednesday, 2 June 2021

List users in a domain group using CMD

 A nice simple one, to find the membership of a domain group use the following on a domain controller.

net group "groupname"