Windows 8 Action Center

Unlike Windows 7 Action Center Windows 8 Action Center can actually perform remediation tasks for the notifications.

These small but significant changes can make Windows 8 one of the best OS.

More on Windows 8

• Rotation Support
  http://www.winrumors.com/hands-on-windows-8-rotation-support-video/ 
• Requires less system resources (Will run on old Hardware)
  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/windows-8-will-run-on-old-atom-cpus-and-1gb-ram/14741
• Built-in antivirus protection
  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/windows-8-will-ship-with-built-in-antivirus-protection/14757
• Ability to Reset and Sync profile settings
  http://www.winbeta.org/?q=news%2Fwindows-8-reset-pc-and-sync-settings
• Alternative authentication
  One can use a picture as password
• Features not shown yet
  http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110914/short-some-of-what-microsoft-didnt-show-of-windows-8/
• New Terminologies
  http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/windows8/windows-8-features-terminology-140559

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Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts

 

Anywhere in Windows 8

WIN + Q
Find and Application

WIN + W 
Search Settings or Control Panel

WIN + I 
Open Preferences of currently running application and windows

WIN + O
Disable screen rotation (turn off the gyro reaction to the tablets)

WIN + C 
Opens MetroUI Start Menu with taskbar items like time and network connectivity

Windows Explorer Hotkeys; (Press ALT Key + the below combination)

A – to open the “special features”

C O – to copy the selected items.

C P – copy the path to the file / folder.

C F – copy the folder (use the drop-down list)

D – delete the selected.

E – edit the selected files.

H – to show the history of file versions.

M – move the files (using the drop-down list).

N – Create a new folder.

P S – insert label

P R – open properties.

P E – Open With …, select the application again using a drop-down list.

S A – select all.

S N – deselect.

S I – invert the selection.

R – rename a selected file (s).

T – cut

V – to paste.

W – to create a new document, choose the template – using the drop-down list.

“Windows Server 8” sneak preview

“….

If you’re in IT you are likely pulled between an almost infinite need for more computing power to deliver business solutions and the ever increasing demands for greater agility, higher efficiency and lower costs.  Fortunately, you can now deliver on these seemingly contradictory demands by leveraging the benefits of cloud computing with our public and private cloud solutions.  And they are only going to get better.

Today we are excited to give you a sneak peek at the next step in private cloud computing by showing you just two of hundreds of new capabilities coming in the next version of Windows Server, internally code-named “Windows Server 8.”…”

Read More

Click here to Watch - go to 36:50

Cannot install an application over the network on Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2

When you try to install of run an application from a network share you get the following error

Application Error: The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000000f). Click OK to close the application.

to resolve this issue, download the following hotfix. Install it and restart the computer.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978869

MSI Manager–Redeploy Software Assigned by GPO

MSI Manager is a simple and great tool that allows you to reinstall a software assigned by group policy. This is very useful when applications were not installed correctly due to timeout or some other issue. If the install gets interrupted in the middle it will not try to reinstall the software again.

To force a reinstall one can manually do the following

in the registry editor navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\AppMgmt.  There will be a key for each software that has been assigned.  To force a reinstall, simply delete the associated key and then run gpupdate/force on the target computer.

To achieve this quicker user MSI Manager – click her to download and read more details

Adding or Deleting Company Holidays to/from All Users’ Calendars–Exchange 2007

I was recently asked to figure out a silent method of adding our organization’s holiday’s to all users calendars. Following was my approach.
First I thought of looking for a client side solution. Everyone in our organization uses Outlook 2007 and outlook uses a file name outlook.hol for holiday configuration. Following is the format of file, it can be created using a simple text editor and can be distributed by an email or commandline (outlook.exe /hol holidayfilename)
[Country or Description] ###
Event or holiday description, yyyy/mm/dd
Event or holiday description, yyyy/mm/dd
read for more details
Above is not very clean for a large environment, so I was not too happy with this solution and started taking a different approach.
Definitely it would be so much easier doing it with Exchange Management Shell and finally I found my answer.
Here is what's needed for a great solution

• Exchange Management Tools and Outlook 2007 installed on a 32bit machine
• Outlook 2007 to create a PST file
• Export-mailbox
• Import-mailbox

Solution

1. First of all create all events for all holidays in a mailbox Calendar and export it to a PST file or Create a Calendar Item in a PST file with the name “Calendar” and create all events in it.
2. On 32bit a machine where outlook 2007 is installed login with an Exchange Enterprise Admin account and open Exchange Management Shell then run the following
   
   $users=Get-Mailbox –ResultSize Unlimited
   Import-Mailbox $users –PSTFolderPath c:\pstfolder/pstfile.pst –IncludeFolders ‘\Calendar’
   
3. Above will add all items from the PST File Calendar to all users’ calendars.

Now what happens if someone comes to you and says hey there is an event we need to delete from all users’ calendars, simple!!
Get-Mailbox –ResultSize Unlimited | Export-Mailbox –IncludeFolders ‘\Calendar’ –SubjectKeywords “Subject of the appointment” –DeleteContent
Hope this is useful!! Please comment.

Run as Different User–Error–Service cannot be started.

Right click an app and chose run as option and provide correct credentials, following error occurs

“The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.”

To fix the above go to services, find Secondary Logon, change the startup type to manual.

Reset trust relationship of a machine to the domain

Login as local administrator

use the following command

netdom resetpwd /Server:DCName /userd:domain\administrator /passwordd:*

Outlook Calendar and Daylight Saving Time

Reoccurring appointments with wrong time

After you have made sure that all your exchange servers have applied correct time settings, clients (workstations) are in sync too and you have a few users complaining about time being incorrect in some of their reoccurring calendar appointments then considering the following may help. Outlook 2010 users may not be effected by this issue but if they are then the following link refers to a Time Zone Data Update Tool for it.

According to the following article Microsoft recommends to use Time Zone Data Update Tool for pre Outlook 2010 clients. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667

Here is the link to download 32bit tool for pre Outlook 2010 client http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667

If you don't want to use the tool or if it doesn't fix the issue then manual edit of the appointment is required. This applies to reoccurring appointments.

Go to Outlook > Calendar and open the series of the reoccurring appointment which is not displaying time correctly.

Then click on reoccurrence button and here you will notice that the appointment time is displayed correctly. There are two ways to fix it.

1. Remove reoccurrence save the appointment and apply it again
2. Change the time zone to a different one and save the appointment then apply the correct time zone again and save the appointment.

Both of these options will generate updates and send it to all attendees, fixing the appointment time on their calendars are well.

Troubleshooting Daylight Saving Time Changes

It’s good to know a few facts before we go about troubleshooting DST changes.

By default the PDC in your domain becomes the Time Provider for the clients in a domain. So the first domain controller installed will become Stratum: 1 time provider.

If the PDC was decommissioned and role was transferred to a different DC then it would be necessary to run the following command on it to make it a Stratum: 1 time provide or a reliable time source for the domain.

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:time.windows.com,0x9 /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update

Above command would make the DC or any member server you run it on a reliable time source for the workstations in a domain. Other DCs would automatically be Stratum:2 servers that means that they will get their time from PDC and will also be time source for workstations so they are client/servers.

For the DST changes to be applied correctly first make sure that all clients have all current windows updates installed by WSUS or directly from Microsoft. If there are still issues with some computers then see if following helps.

1. Try to restart Windows Time Service

        net stop w32time && net start w32time

1. If that doesn't fix it then consider the following:

• Make sure that the clients are configured to get time from a the Domain

Run the following commands in the same order

         w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update

         net stop w32time && net start w32time

• TimeZone related information is saved at three locations in registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones

And the Time service parameters

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones" is often updated by Microsoft and is applied through windows updates.

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time" has the configuration for the time service that includes where the machine should get its time from, whether this computer is a time server or a client/server or just a client and much more.

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" when nothing works these settings do their magic when it comes to DST changes.

Problem Cases

1. So you have already restarted the time service on a client and still it displays wrong time.

1. Event log says that the client is getting time from the correct DC but still time is displayed wrong.

1. You have setup the TYPE to NT5DS by running the command [w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update] which would force the clients to get the time from PDC but still it is displaying wrong time.

Solution

Find a computer that has correct DST applied - a computer that doesn't have problem

Go to the registry and export the following

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

And make sure to add the following entry at the end the exported reg file

"DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet"=dword:00000000

This would make sure that the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" is checked or enabled so you don't have the same issue.

The computer a txt file with the names of all computers that have problem and use the following command to apply changes (make sure to have pstools installed)

Psexec –s @txtfilewithcomputernames.txt regedit -s path\to\regfile.reg

Restart the computers

Hope it helps. Happy DST!!

Check the following for more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387

Add Trusted Sites in Internet Explorer – Keeping users’ existing list

I received a call from a colleague asking if we could add a few intranet sites to each users Trusted Sites list. I said “Sure” that should be easy, send the list of sites.

Hmmm!! Easy!! Yea but not too easy.

Because if I use a group policy for this, users wont be able to add any site to the list. Which might be a great thing from security point but in our environment its just not acceptable.

So I had to think of a different method.  While changing the trusted zone settings manually I used Procmon.exe to record changes in registry and and found that the Trusted Zones are saved in the following location

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

Now I felt better because there are many ways to deploy these settings but I used Group Policy Preferences. Easy and Clean.

1. Added the intranet sites to my Internet Options – Trusted Sites

2. Opened the existing GPO for Internet Explorer

3. Navigated to User Configuration –> Preferences –> Windows Settings –> Registry

4. Right Click Registry and chose New –> Registry Wizard

   
   

5. Select Local Computer –> Next and Just Chose the Domain or the sites that you added to the Registry location mentioned above.

6. Make sure to tick/check all the values

That’s it! It will now apply to all users while they have their own list of Trusted Zones.

List of Top Free Windows Administration Tools

This is a comprehensive list of Windows Administration Tools available for free. There are some great detailed reviews about tools, all of these review are written by Michael Pietroforte.  I like his reviews as they are informative and honest.

Windows Administration Tools 

Above is a precious collection of any Systems Administrator.

Outlook 2007 crashes on Import/Export

Lets say you are trying to export your contacts to a Tab Delimited Text file or CSV file. The process begins but outlook crashes right away leaving the following event in your event log

Event ID: 1000
Source: Microsoft Office 12

Discription:
Faulting application outlook.exe, version 12.0.6514.5000, stamp 4a89dc70, faulting module oladd.fae, version 12.0.6500.5000, stamp 49a6ed5f, debug? 0, fault address 0x00008c24.

One of the reasons why it might happen is that Microsoft Exchange Management Tools for Exchange 2007 are installed on the computer and Microsoft says it not supported.

To Fix it

Open command prompt and type fixmapi and press enter (there will be no notification, its instant)

Make sure Outlook is closed while you do the above, reopen Outlook and try to Export it should now work fine.

Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 logon delays

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a computer that is running windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
• You set a solid color as the desktop background.
• The Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service is running.
• You log on to the computer locally.

In this scenario, the Welcome screen is displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process.

So if you like a plain desktop, its not necessarily what Microsoft thought was the case.  One of the reasons why you might face the issue of delayed logons can be that you have chosen a solid color for your desktop.

see the following link for more details and a hotfix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346

NPS Setting for SafeWord 2008 with Cisco Router

When using Aladdin SafeWord 2008 with RADIUS authentication installed on Windows Server 2008, Network Policy Server (NPS) needs to be configured for RADIUS authentication with the router as RADIUS client. For Cisco routers the following authentication settings will work.

Unfortunately the documentation for Aladdin SafeWord 2008 does not provide the following steps, so I decided to put it here for anyone who can benefit from it.

After you have installed SafeWord 2008 successfully, made sure all SafeWord services have the startup type – Automatic and have activated it. Now its time to work on RADIUS Authentication, following steps describe the complete process:

1. Open Start --> All Programs --> Aladdin --> SafeWord --> Configuration --> IAS Agent Configuration
   Under Authentication Policy click on Groups and make sure the following options are selected.
2. Steps below are for NPS settings
   * Open NPS Console, Right Click RADIUS Clients and select New RADIUS Client option
   * Provide following details based on your environment.
   
   
3. Go to Policies --> Network Policies (Right click and choose New) and Follow the snapshots below
   
   
   
   
   
    
   Authentication methods are very important
    
   Click next in all the windows after this and finish at the end.
   
4. Make sure that this newly created Network Policy is on the top and if you want disable all the other listed network policies by default.
5. No need to touch the connection request policy already there.

That's it!! NPS authentication with SafeWord 2008 should work fine now.

So-called GodMode in Window 7 !!! I call it AdminMode.

I don't like the idea of calling a cool shortcut or trick “GodMode”. However as you might have guessed, I like the trick itself. I would call it “AdminMode” because that's what it is.

In Windows 7 you can create a new folder anywhere with the following name

AdminMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

You can change “AdminMode” to whatever you want to name the folder. After the folder creation is complete you will see it listed as following.

When you double click it, you will see a list of commands which are either well hidden or require a few clicks to get to. With the help of AdminMode you get easily access all of these cool features at one place. What's even more great is that you can create a shortcut by right clicking any option and choosing create a shortcut, it will place a shortcut on your desktop.

Enjoy Windows 7 !!!!

Roaming Quick Access Toolbar

Office 2007 is packed with useful new features. Quick Access Toolbar is one of them, although the concept is not new but the ease with which you can add the buttons to quick access toolbar is what I would call a new feature. With Quick Access Toolbar you can have a collection of frequently used commands on the top of the ribbon, in the title bar. To add an option to the quick access toolbar just right click on any command on the Ribbon in any Microsoft office program and select the option “Add to Quick Access Toolbar”

Of course we all know that, we also know that this toolbar is actually saved as a file in your profile at the following location

"%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\*.qat

all the files with .qat extension are quick access toolbars for the related application.

When using roaming profile it becomes an issue because as you have noticed that the qat files are in Local Settings folder, which doesn’t get saved with the roaming profile. So to have all users’ Quick Access Toolbar in the roaming profile we need to do two things. First following registry DWORD needs to be created for each user.

HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Toolbars

New DWORD –> QuickAccessToolbarRoaming
Value –> 00000001

Above can be achieved in many ways, easiest of them could be to use Group Policy Preferences.

Now we  the second step is optional because it is completely for user satisfaction. For the users who have already added their favorite commands to the QAT, once the roaming is activated they will lose their settings. To prevent it you can add the following line to a logon script or just create a new batch file and have it applied as logon script for all users.

move /Y "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\*.qat" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Office\"

Freeware to Backup and Restore Device Drivers

Double Driver is a great freeware to backup and restore device drivers. It is a stand alone application that you can run from a USB drive or any storage location without needing an install.

it works fine with windows 7. Its a great tool!! no need to worry about keeping track of recovery CDs for old laptops and desktops.

Freeware to Backup and Restore Device Drivers

Double Driver is a great freeware to backup and restore device drivers. It is a stand alone application that you can run from a USB drive or any storage location without needing an install.

it works fine with windows 7. Its a great tool!! no need to worry about keeping track of recovery CDs for old laptops and desktops.