Error Code 800F0922 when updating Windows Server 2012

You may receive error code 800F0922 when trying to update Windows Server 2012 or Server 2012 R2 when you are trying to install Security Update KB2920189.

This error is caused by a conflict with Secure Boot. To make the update work you need to disable secure boot.

  • Reboot the machine into the BIOS, (usually by pressing F2 or DEL repeatedly as the server starts)
  • Once you are in BIOS, locate boot options and select DISABLE SECURE BOOT.
  • Save and exit the configuration changes and boot into the OS normally.
  • Run the update. It should be successful.
  • Reboot the system back into the BIOS screen.
  • In the BOOT options, re-enable SECURE BOOT, save configurations changes and restart machine booting into the OS as normal

This can also happen in Hyper-V VMs. To disable Secure Boot in Hyper-V go into the VM settings, click the firmware setting and untick”Enable Secure Boot”.

Read More →
Replies: 1 / Share:

How to update Windows 10

To update Windows 10 you can do this two ways.

The first way to update Windows 10 is to open the control panel, then select Windows Update. Then check for updates and install them.

The second option is to open the Windows Update app. To open Windows Update app just type in update in the start menu then select Windows Update. Then download and install the updates.

Read More →
Replies: 1 / Share:

MDT – Activate BIOS embedded product key

With Windows 8 and 8.1 computers some of them have been coming out with BIOS embedded product keys. This has done away with the stickers that had the product key on them stuck to the bottom of laptops and stuck on the side of desktops.

Activating these when you install from traditional windows installation media(cd, USB, etc) is quite easy just install windows, connect to the Internet and its activated automatically. No more needing to type out that pesky mix of numbers and letters that make up your Windows product key.

This means no more of the product key stickers that can get damaged meaning that when you install your operating system you do not need the product key sticker to activate Windows. This would seem like an excellent idea, except that it was not designed for people that use MDT(Microsoft Deployment Toolkit) to deploy Windows images to their computers, THEY JUST DON’T ACTIVATE!!

If you use MDT to deploy your images I’m sure you have ran into this frustrating problem as well. Apparently Microsoft thinks that MDT is only used by organisations that have volume licensing agreements and do not use computers with BIOS embedded product keys.

How to activate Windows embedded BIOS key after MDT installation

The way to actually activate Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 BIOS embedded product key is to extract it out of the BIOS and then manually enter it into the operating system.

So the steps are:

  • Deploy your image as you would normally using MDT
  • Extract Product Key from BIOS
  • Go to “Activate My PC”
  • Enter the product key that you extracted earlier from your BIOS

How to extract product key from BIOS

The tool that you will need to extract the Windows product key from BIOS is RW-Everything.

First you will need to download RW-Everything(I like the portable version, just saves you having to install anything)

Once it is finished downloading extract the .Zip file and navigate to the Rw.exe file

RW-Everything extracted

 

Then you will need to run Rw.exe as administrator

Click the ACPI button at the top and then go MSDM tab

Under "DATA" will be the embedded product key
Under “DATA” will be the embedded product key

If you look under the DATA line will be the BIOS embedded product key.

Read More →
Replies: 0 / Share:

How to set Office 365 password to never expire

First you need to make sure you have the Azure AD Module installed on the computer.
If you do not have the the Azure AD Module installed you need to:
Open PowerShell as administrator
Run the command
(get-item C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\MSOnline\Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.PSModule.dll).VersionInfo.FileVersion

Then you need to run the following commands in powershell:
$msolcred = get-credential
connect-msolservice -credential $msolcred
Get-MSOLUser | Set-MsolUser -PasswordNeverExpires $true

You can check if this has worked by running the following command in powershell
Get-MSOLUser | Select UserPrincipalName, PasswordNeverExpires

Read More →
Replies: 0 / Share:

Resolve VSS errors without rebooting your server

Usually when you have a VSS error you will need to reboot your server or open the services.msc console and restart the service that is associated with it. I know I have had to do this a number of times with Exchange services on Small Business Servers to resolve backup issues.

This is a task that can be automated with this PowerShell script.

What the script does is it checks the status of each VSS Writer(which can be manually done in the command prompt by using the command “VSSAdmin list writers“) and then restart the service that is associated with it.

You can also set this to run as a scheduled task maybe in the middle of the night or once a backup has finished.

$ServiceArray = @{
'ASR Writer' = 'VSS';
'Bits Writer' = 'BITS';
'Certificate Authority' = 'EventSystem';
'COM+ REGDB Writer' = 'VSS';
'DFS Replication service writer' = 'DFSR';
'Dhcp Jet Writer' = 'DHCPServer';
'FRS Writer' = 'NtFrs'
'IIS Config Writer' = 'AppHostSvc';
'IIS Metabase Writer' = 'IISADMIN';
'Microsoft Exchange Writer' = 'MSExchangeIS';
'Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer' = 'vmms';
'MS Search Service Writer' = 'EventSystem';
'NPS VSS Writer' = 'EventSystem';
'NTDS' = 'EventSystem';
'OSearch VSS Writer' = 'OSearch';
'OSearch14 VSS Writer' = 'OSearch14';
'Registry Writer' = 'VSS';
'Shadow Copy Optimization Writer' = 'VSS';
'Sharepoint Services Writer' = 'SPWriter';
'SPSearch VSS Writer' = 'SPSearch';
'SPSearch4 VSS Writer' = 'SPSearch4';
'SqlServerWriter' = 'SQLWriter';
'System Writer' = 'CryptSvc';
'WMI Writer' = 'Winmgmt';
'TermServLicensing' = 'TermServLicensing';
}
vssadmin list writers | Select-String -Context 0,4 'writer name:' | ? {$_.Context.PostContext[3].Trim() -ne "last error: no error"} | Select Line | %
{$_.Line.tostring().Split("'")[1]}| ForEach-Object {Restart-Service $ServiceArray.Item($_) -Force}

Read More →
Replies: 4 / Share:

How to recover folder from Public Folder on Office 365/Exchange 2013

A lot of the documentation for recovering folders from exchange says that you can do it straight from outlook by selecting the recover deleted items icon Outlook.

In theory this is fine but in practice your exchange users do not have permission to do this and they will get an error saying:

Outlook was unable to recover some or all of the items in this folder. Make sure you have the required permissions to recover items in this folder and try again. If the problem persists contact your administrator.

Outlook was unable to recover some or all of the items in this folder. Make sure you have the required permissions to recover items in this folder and try again. If the problem persists contact your administrator.

Your public folder that has been deleted will still be held by exchange because exchange has a retention policy so when a folder is deleted it is still held in the exchange retention folder.

Recover Public Folders using Powershell

To restore the public folder you will need to open an exchange PowerShell if you are using Office 365 follow the steps in our post how to connect to office 365 using powers shell to connect to Office 365 using PowerShell.

Then you need to list all of the public folders and output to CSV by running the command(you will need to set the output of Export-Csv to the folderpath of the file you want to output):

Get-PublicFolder -Identity "\NON_IPM_SUBTREE" -Recurse | Select Identity | Export-Csv c:\outfolder\out.csv

Then open up the csv file and find the folders you would like to restore then go back to powershell and you will need to run the following command replacing the *VALUE* the the value from the CSV file.

Set-PublicFolder -Identity "*VALUE*" -Path "\" -Verbose
Eg:
Set-PublicFolder -Identity "\NON_IPM_SUBTREE\DUMPSTER_ROOT\DUMPSTER_EXTEND\RESERVED_1\RESERVED_1\a33b5631-a4a8-432f- 9349-80aa14eadbf8\2015\General Correspondence" -Path "\" -Verbose

You might also like this article about how to recover a public folder database which will allow you to recover the public folders after the retention period on an on premis installation of Exchange Server.

Read More →
Replies: 3 / Share:

How to connect to Office 365 Exchange using Powershell

I use these commands to connect to Exchange Online in Office365.

To do this you need to open powershell and run these command:

$LiveCred = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange-ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session

After the first line it will pop up and ask you for credentials for Office 365. You will need to use your administrator email and password.

 

get credential for exchange online 365
get credential for exchange online 365
Read More →
Replies: 0 / Share:

Find a column from all tables in a database on SQL Server

I recently have needed to find a column but could not remember what table it was in the database.

You can run this query on your SQL Server to find a specific column in the whole database:

SELECT COLUMN_NAME,  TABLE_NAME
FROM  INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE  COLUMN_NAME LIKE’ %ColumnName%’

You will need to replace the ColumnName(that is in red) with the actual name of your column that you are looking for. What this query actually does is query the Information Schema of the Database that holds all of the information about tables, views, columns and procedures to do with the database.

An example of this is say that you want to look for every table that has a ‘ClientCode’ column you can run the following query on the SQL database:

SELECT COLUMN_NAME,  TABLE_NAME
FROM  INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE  COLUMN_NAME LIKE’ %ClientCode%’

You might also like this video How to install SQL Server 2012 that takes you through the steps to install SQL Server.

Read More →
Replies: 0 / Share:

Something happened and your Windows 8.1 installation couldn’t be completed during upgrade from Windows 8

This error happens when trying to upgrade Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 through the Microsoft Store.

If you get this error what you need to do is install all of your Windows updates and then try the upgrade to Windows 8.1 again.

You can upgrade Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 for free through the Microsoft Store, I would recommend you do this because then you will have the latest operating system.

To do this you need to:

  • Open the start menu and type in “update”
  • Click on the “settings” button
  • Select “Install Optional Updates”
  • Select check for updates on the left of the Windows Update pane
  • Then install all of the updates
  • Reboot your computer
  • Repeat until no more updates are available
Read More →
Replies: 0 / Share: