Windows DNS Forwarder Population
A customer contacted me today asking why when they promoted all these domain controllers, they had old DNS forwarders automatically configured on each server.When DCPROMO installs the DNS Server...
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Exchange 2013 - Could not find any available Global Catalog in forest
I was contracted to redesign a companies AD Sites and Services Topology - it was never setup correctly and despite being a 500 user organisation with 13 branch sites, they were still running of the...
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Why my Domain Password Policy Not Applying?
Back in 2009 I published a very popular article "The Low-Down on Password Policies" which has been viewed by thousands of IT Professionals and referenced by application vendors in online documentation...
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Windows cannot move object because Access is denied
I came across an interesting error today when attempting to move a security group to a new location in Active Directory.Windows cannot move object because Access is deniedThis issue was caused by...
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Remove Run menu from Start Menu - Policy Bug
Today I stumbled across a bug with Windows 8.1 / 2012 R2 with the Group Policy setting:User Configuration ->Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar-> Remove Run menu...
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Searching RBL Agent Logs on Microsoft Exchange
In this blog post I will show you a quick way to search through large amounts of Real Time Blacklists logs on an Exchange Server. This article assumes you have RBL Providers in place on an Exchange...
View ArticleMicrosoft Word Performance Issues - KB3114717
A customer contacted me mid-February complaining of significant performance issues with Microsoft Word 2013 SP1 (32bit). When users copied and pasted text, scrolled up and down a document or changed...
View ArticleWindows 7 SP1 hanging on Checking for Updates
Trying to perform a simple task of installing Windows 7 x64 Enterprise with Service Pack 1 on some virtual machines in my lab to test a product. Windows 7 SP1 comes with Internet Explorer 8 and is...
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Windows 7 Computers Rebooting During Day for Updates
A customer was having an issue where Windows 7 computers randomly rebooted during the day for Windows Updates without providing a prompt for users the option to postpone updates. This was resulting in...
View Article.NET Framework 4.6.1 and Exchange 2013 / 2016
Currently with Exchange 2013 CU12 and Exchange 2016 CU1, it is not supported to install .NET Framework 4.6.1 as it causes issues databases unexpectedly dismount or failover to alternative servers...
View ArticleReduce your IT Support costs by purchasing quality hardware upfront
During my career in the IT Industry, I see many small business entities purchase cheap consumer grade hardware from a local computer store in order to reduce IT costs. This is bad practice and almost...
View ArticleExchange 2016 CU2 - Automatically Move Exchange Databases back to Preferred...
In Exchange 2016 CU2, Microsoft has released a new feature which has been a request of mine since the release of Exchange Database Availability Groups (DAGs) in Exchange 2010. I have built many...
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Setting Delivery Restrictions and Exchange Administration Center
Delivery Restrictions is a feature of Exchange Server which has been around since Exchange 2000 and allows companies to easily limit who can send to a distribution list or mailbox. A very common use...
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Modern Public Folders in Multi-Tenant Environments
Modern Public Folders is a new feature introduced in Exchange 2013 and also available in Exchange 2016 to allow companies to leverage Database Availability Groups and utilise log shipping as opposed to...
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IMAP4 Frontend with Exchange 2013
A customer of Avantgarde Technologies was having issues with IMAP4 on Exchange 2013. In Exchange 2013 the IMAP Role has changed and how has a "front end" and "backend role". This is shown by two...
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Bug with Windows 7 and Access Based Enumeration
I encountered an interesting bug with Windows 7 workstations with Access Based Enumeration enabled on a SMB Share and DFS Namespace running on Windows Server 2012 R2.When a user tries to create a file...
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DFSR Service 100% CPU Usage
I had an enterprise DFSR customer of mine with 17 File Server nodes complaining that CPU utilisation was at 100% on numerous DFSR nodes in the cluster.In addition to the DFSR.exe process maxing out CPU...
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DFSR Backlog Count Not Reducing - Server 2012 R2
Microsoft recently released an update which causes DFSRS.exe CPU usage to hit 100%.https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3156418I wrote about this problem on the following blog...
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DFSR Event ID 6404 - The Replicated Folder has an Invalid Local Path
I was attempting to add a new DFSR node to an existing DFSR Replication Group consisting of 17 file servers. When adding the server the following error was experienced.DFS Replication cannot replicate...
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Error downloading unsupported File Types with IIS
A customer of mine was complained that when users attempted to download unknown file types, they received a "404 - File or directory not found" error message.The file type my user was attempting to...
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