Category Archives: Microsoft

Convert Server 2016 trial version to licensed version

by

If you’ve downloaded the trial version of Server 2016 and decided you’d like to just go ahead and put it into to production it’s easy to change the version and save yourself a reinstall of the OS. This article does a good job at explaining the process. The quick version is, at an elevated command prompt enter
dism /online /set-edition:ServerStandard /productkey:WC2BQ-8NRM3-FDDYY-2BFGV-KHKQY /accepteula

That is a KMS key, if you are using a KMS server then you can leave the command as is, if you are using a MAK or retail key just substitute it for the one given. The server will then need to reboot. After you log back in, at an elevated command prompt type: slmgr /ipk WC2BQ-8NRM3-FDDYY-2BFGV-KHKQY and once again use the save key you used in the first command. After that has finished, to activate Windows type the following command:
slmgr /ato

This method worked perfectly for me using a freshly downloaded trial version of 2016 and a MAK key from the volume licensing center.

Hyper-V failed to enable replication for virtual machine

by

While trying to switch around my Hyper V replication scheme so I could take one of my servers offline for a while so I could expand its RAID 10 array and change the way I had it the array partitioned to “One Big RAID 10”. I ran into an issue where I wasn’t able to replicate to an old server I had stood up temporarily running Hyper V Server 2012r2, this was just the free hyper v server, not 2012r2 std. The error I got was “Hyper-V failed to enable replication for virtual machine ‘DC2’: The operation timed out (0x00002EE2).”After many failed attempts and lots of scratching on my rapidly balding head I found this post on the microsoft technet forum that fixed the issue for me. I was sceptical that it would work since I had already disabled the firewall, but adding these rules via powershell did the trick. Here is how I implemented the fix.

  1. log in to the offending server(s), either locally or via RDP, you could also run the commands remotely if you choose.
  2. open powershell, if you are running the free hyper-v server this can be done by just typing “powershell” at the command prompt. If you are running standard windows server or the like I’ll assume you know how to launch it from the menu or search.
  3. run the following commands: Enable-Netfirewallrule -displayname “Hyper-V Replica HTTP Listener (TCP-In)”    then this one:  Enable-Netfirewallrule -displayname “Hyper-V Replica HTTP Listener (TCP-In)”

Now try to enable replication for one of your VMs.

Server 2012 Remote Desktop licenses

by

I recently ran into a problem where an agency I help purchased some remote desktop licenses from Techsoup. After going through the usual process with the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center no keys were available to do the activation on the server. After much head scratching I found a forum post at Spiceworks that had directions. It’s a bit different that the usual volume license process so I’ll post it below.

f you’ve already set up your licencing server, which you most likely have:

  1. Go into Server Manager
  2. Select Remote Desktop Services
  3. (wait for everything to Load) Click Servers
  4. Right click on the server that you assigned as license manager >Select RD Licensing Manager
  5. Right click on the server listed on the right > Install Licenses
  6. Click Next > Under license program, select Open License > Click Next
  7. Paste / Type in your Authorization number and license number. > Click Next
  8. Select the Product you want to activate and the number of licenses you want to activate.
  9. Finish nexting through that and you’re done.

So to sum things up, instead of getting a license key from the VLSC, you use the Authorization number and license number. Weird.

Not all network printers showing up in scan

by

I ran into this problem the other day after adding yet another MFC device to our network. I added the printer to our 2008 r2 print server and added both x86 and 64bit drivers. But when I tried to add the new printer to the workstations that would be using it, it never showed up when scanning for printers. I double and tripled check settings on the server, made sure I had checked to box for “list in the directory”, but even after waiting several minutes it never showed up. I then found this forum post detailing a group policy setting that if left not configured limits the network printer scan to 20 twenty printers. After making the the changes all our printers are now visible when scanning for printers. So if you find yourself in the same boat you can click the link above to read all the posts concerning it or just do this from the group policy editor:

Go to Computer config
Admin templates
Printers
Add Printer Wizard – Network scan page (Managed Network)

Enable this and setup the types of printers you want to display. If you are like me and just need to show more network printers change Directory Printers to 0 (zero) for unlimited or to whatever limit you like.

Scanned files not showing up in shared folder

by

We have several copiers at our office that are used for scanning documents to .pdf files, among other things. Last week we added yet another one and I configured the copier to scan the files to a department shared folder just like I’ve done many times before. When testing the new setup I would see the new scanned files in the folder from my machine, but the users in the department that it was set up for only saw an empty folder. Several minutes went by and finally one user could see the file, but the other four or so still could not. So after doing some digging I found several forum posts and Microsoft articles on the subject and a registry hack that did the trick for me. You can find the article from Microsoft here. To sum up the fix, here is what is required. Change the DWORD value for the following registry keys to 0 (zero).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Lanmanworkstation\
Parameters\FileInfoCacheLifetime

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Lanmanworkstation\
Parameters\FileNotFoundCacheLifetime

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Lanmanworkstation\
Parameters\DirectoryCacheLifetime

And thats all there is to it.

Moving OpenVpn server to new hardware

by

I’ve been running a windows OpenVpn server for over 5 years now. Part of that as a VM and for the last 3 years or so on dedicated hardware. That hardware consisted of an old Dell desktop PC running Windows XP. It was an emergency setup that I just never got back around to fixing permanently. So this week I decided to migrate it to one of my Hyper-V hosts and run it on a 2008r2 Std.  VM. I’ve always ran OpenVpn in bridged mode, so when I tried to create the bridge in 2008r2 I found that I would lose network connectivity. I tried deleting and recreating the bridge several times along with multiple reboots, always with the same results. After much googling I ran across an article describing this problem in server 2003r2 and a link to another article describing how to force the TAP nic into compatibility mode due to some NICs not automatically entering into Promiscuous mode which causes the bridge not to be able to pass traiffic. The fix for me was forcing compatability mode on the Microsoft Hyper-V adapter instead of the virtual OpenVpn TAP adapter. To do this simply open an elevated command prompt and type “netsh bridge show adapter” then locate the identification number of the NIC you wish to put into compatibility mode. Next type the following command substituting the number of your prefered NIC for the 1 “netsh bridge set adapter 1 forcecompatmode=enable”  Next run the “netsh bridge show adapter” command again to verify that the ForceCompatabilityMode field for the NIC is displayed as Enabled.

 

Lenovo 3000 G530 Windows 7, unknown device

by

I’ve been upgrading a some of our Lenovo 3000 G530 laptops to Windows 7 over the last few weeks to try to get another year or two service out of them. After the OS install all the devices are detected and the drivers installed automagically with the exception of two unknown devices that show up under other devices as base system devices. After a little trial and error I discovered that these two devices were related to the memory card reader and installing the JMicron JMB38X Flash Media Controller Driver located here gets your device manager screen looking nice with no more yellow exclamation points.

Office 2010 fails to activate, error 0x80070190

by

I ran into this problem after creating a customized windows 7 pro install image that included Office 2010 sp1. I installed all the updates for both Office and Windows 7 before running sysprep, these updates included sp2 for office. It seems there is a problem with updating to sp2 before activation, that leaves you unable to activate in the normal way. Luckily there is an easy work around. First attempt to activate normally, when this fails, close out what ever office application you had open. Next open an elevated command prompt. Navigate to the folder :C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14   if you are running 32 bit windows, if running 64 windows with 32 bit office  go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14   Then simply enter: cscript ospp.vbs /act   If everything works correctly you will see Product Activation Successful in the output of the script. There have been a couple times that I have gotten a failed activation using this method as well, but trying it again after a reboot has worked.

Losing interest in HP…..

by

Since working to replace /upgrade all our old XP machines I’m running into more and more printer problems with Windows 7 pro 64bit mostly but also some with the 32 bit variety.  Granted some of these are old Laserjet printers, but the latest, an HP LaserJetP1505n has gotten on my last nerve. I’m replacing it with a Brother workgroup laser printer instead of going with another HP. We are almost exclusively an HP shop but between fighting with printer driver problems and HP’s latest move concerning firmware updates (you can read about it here), I’m seriously looking and going a different direction. What direction that is, I’m not sure. But the last thing a one man IT dept. needs is another support subscription to keep up with when other vendors are giving it away for free.

Hyper-V 2012 r2 guest 2 “unknown devices”?

by

If you are running a Hyper-V 2012 r2 host with guest VMs that are of earlier versions of windows you will notice a couple of unknown devices in the device manager, even after installing the hyper-v integration services on the guest. When I first noticed this I thought maybe some driver didn’t install correctly, but after doing a little digging i found a Microsoft Knowledge Base article dealing with this very subject kb2925727. The article states   “On a Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Hyper-V host, you may see 2 unknown device under Other Devices in device manager of any virtual machine running operating systems earlier than Windows Server 2012 R2. These Virtual Devices (VDev) are provided for Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) to communicate with the host. AVMA is only supported on virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 R2 or later versions of operating systems. The unknown devices are harmless and can be ignored. ” So there you go.