IT Systems Engineering
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Windows update log syntax has changed
The windows update log (under C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log) has changed in Windows 2012, as compared with Windows 2008 server. So for checking when the next install will happen, search for this text: 2012 says:scheduled install attempt time Note that this is in GMT but the timestamps are local server time. 2008 says:Setting AU scheduled install time To find when the server will be rebooted search for this text: invoking RebootSystem
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Delete user profiles on a RDSH server
Delprof is an excellent program to delete your users’ profiles: http://helgeklein.com/free-tools/delprof2-user-profile-deletion-tool/ By the way, if you want to do all this manually, here is the procedure for that: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/1595-how-to-delete-a-user-profile-from-server-2008-terminal-server Additionally, you may want to delete the roaming profiles on your central file server. It is usually difficult to to that because the files are in use. I use a nice little utility called unlocker for that. I run this FOR loop on a command line on the server hosting the roaming profiles: cd C:\Program Files\UnlockerFOR /D %G in (“E:\Shares\Remote Desktop Services\Profile\*”) DO (unlocker “%G” /D /S & timeout /t 30 /nobreak) Note that if you have a lot of profiles,…
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Disabling IE ESC on a Windows Server 2008 R3 RDSH server
We had a very hard time trying to disable IE ESC on a RDSH server running 2008 R2. All the usual registry fixes people talk about in forums did not work for us. ESC got disabled for admins but not not for users. Eventually I found this setting in the registry which did the trick: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap]“IEHarden”=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{A509B1A7-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}]“IsInstalled”=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{A509B1A8-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}]“IsInstalled”=dword:00000000 Note that we are setting the policies on the computer level…NOT on the user level. Other than these three settings, nothing else is needed. Oh Yes! we did have the delete the profiles of users on the RDSH server and also from the roaming profile…
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Cloning a VM on Hyper-V without shutting it down
{note: this post is deprecated, it is now possible to do “live cloning” using VMM 2012 R2, See my newer post below} Create clone of running VM using VMM My OLD post: If you use SC VMM’s own VM cloning functionality, you see two major problems: You have to shut down that VM, and The original VM gets destroyed. Of course this is not acceptable if you are trying to create a dev VM out of a production VM. Here is how you can clone a VM without these problems: Using VMM, create a checkpoint (snapshot) of that VM. Wait for the process to finish. This quieses the VHD, making…
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GPO for setting IE’s ESC and compatibility mode
Quick links / info only here. Read detailed description / instructions on the pages linked. Setting ESC: As taken from this web page: How To – Q2: How can I deploy the Windows Server 2008 Internet Explorer Enhanced Security option via group policy? A: The administrative template file inetesc.adm can also be used to deploy the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration settings on Windows Server 2008. To do so, you can Download the adm file from the following link and import it to the GPO. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d41b036c-e2e1-4960-99bb-9757f7e9e31b&DisplayLang=en Here are the detailed steps: 1. Create a new GPO or use an existing GPO to configure the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security setting. 2.…