Microsoft

Today, this tweet caught my attention.

Windows Patching As You Know It Is Dead https://t.co/X3y6rkspUY via @xenappblog

— Trond Eirik Haavarstein (@xenappblog) June 28, 2017

Patch management is currently a hot topic, primarily because of the latest ransomware attacks.

After appearance of WannaCry, one of my older blog posts got unfamiliar attention: WSUS on Windows 2012 (R2) and KB3159706 – WSUS console fails to connect. Why? My guess: Many admins started updating their Windows servers after appearance of WannaCry. Nearly a year after Microsoft has published KB3159706, their WSUS servers ran into this issue.

One of my customers has started a project to create a Windows 10 Enterprise (LTSB 2016) master for their VMware Horizon View environment. Beside the fact (okay, it is more a personal feeling), that Windows 10 is a real PITA for VDI, I noticed an interesting issue during tests.

The issue

For convenience, I adopted some settings of the current Persona Management GPO for Windows 7 for the new Windows 10 environment. During the tests, the customer and I noticed a strange behaviour: After login, the start menu won’t open. The only solution was to logoff and delete the persona folder (most folders are redirected using native Folder Redirections, not the redirection feature of the View Persona Management). While debugging this issue, I found this error in the eventlog.

I switched my mobile carrier and my new carrier doesn’t offer multi SIM (but hey, it’s cheap and sufficient for my needs). Now I have to use my iPhone as WiFi hotspot. No big deal, works perfect. Except one thing: When I was using the built-in 4G modem in my laptop, Windows 10 knew that it was using a mobile (metered) connection, and suspended some services like OneDrive sync, download of Windows Updates etc. That is pretty handy in times of “flatrates” with single digit GB highspeed data volume.

A RemoteApp is an application, that is running on a Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH), and only the display output is sent to the client. Because the application is running on a RDSH, you can easily deliver applications to end users. Another benefit is, that data is not leaving the datacenter. Software and data are kept inside the datacenter. RemoteApps can be used and deployed in various ways:

• Users can start RemoteApps through the Remote Desktop Web Access
• Users can start RemoteApps using a special RDP file
• Users can simply start a link on the desktop or from the start menu (RemoteApps and Desktop connections deployed by an MSI or a GPO)
• or they can click on a file that is associated with a RemoteApp

Even in times of VDI (LOL…), RemoteApps can be quite handy. You can deploy virtual desktops without any installed applications. Application can then delivered using RemoteAPps. This can be handy, if you migrate from RDSH/ Citrix published desktops to  VMware Horizon View. Or if you are already using RDSH, and you want to try VMware Horizon View.

One of my personal predictions for 2017 is, that Microsoft Azure will gain more market share. Especially here in Germany. Because of this, I have started to refresh my knowledge about Azure. A nice side effect is that I can also improve my PowerShell skills.

Currently, the script creates a couple of VMs and resource groups. Nothing more, nothing less. The next features I want to add are:

• add additional disks to the DCs (for SYSVOL and NTDS)
• promote both two servers to domain controllers
• change the DNS settings for the Azure vNetwork
• deploy a Windows 10 client VM

I created a new repository on GitHub and shared a first v0.1 as public Gist. Please note, that this is REALLY a v0.1.

As part of a troubleshooting process, I had to disable circular logging on a Microsoft Exchange 2013 mailbox database, that was part of a Database Availability Group (DAG).

What is circular logging? Microsoft Exchange uses log files that record all transactions and modifications to a mailbox database. In this case, Exchange works like MS SQL or Oracle. These log files are used, to bring the database back to a consistent state after a crash, or to recover a database to a specific point-in-time. Because everything is written to log files, the number of log files increases over time. Log files are truncated, as soon as a successful full backup of the database is taken.

Today, I have stumbled upon a fact that is worth being documented.

TL;DR: Use the “Windows Srv 2016 DataCtr/Std KMS” host key (CSVLK), if you want to activate Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 using KMS. Or use AD-based activation. For more information read the blog post of the Ask the Core Team: Windows Server 2016 Volume Activation Tips.

A customer wants to deploy Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016. A Windows Server 2012 R2 is acting as KMS host, and successfully activates Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus. The “Windows Srv 2012R2 DataCtr/Std KMS for Windows 10” CSVLK was successfully installed. Nevertheless, the “current count” value does not increase. The client logged the event 12288:

Sometimes you have to check when the last backup of an Exchange mailbox database was taken. This is pretty simple, because the timestamps of the last full, incremental and differential backup is stored for each mailbox database. You can check these attributes using the Exchange Control Panel (ECP), or you can use the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet.

Backup successful, but no timestamp?

Take a look at this output. As you can see, there’s no timestamp for the last full, incremental and differential backup. But this database was successfully backuped some minutes before.

When you use Microsoft Outlook in cached mode, what I always recommend, and you add additional mailboxes to your outlook profile, you will notice that the OST file will grow. Outlook will download the mailbox items (mails, calendar entries, contacts etc.), and store them in the OST file. This is the default behaviour since Microsoft Outlook 2010. If you want to disable this behaviour, you have two options:

• Edit the registry
• Use a group policy object (GPO)

Edit the Windows registry

The easiest way is to use a reg file. Copy this text into a file and save it as disablecachedmode.reg. Then double click the file and confirm, that you want to import the registry file.

Edit: If you have already installed .NET 4.6.1, check this blog post on how to remove it (You Had Me At EHLO…)

Microsoft Exchange heavily relies on Microsoft .NET Framework. Because of this, Microsoft provides a matrix for the supported Microsoft .NET Frameworks. Mostly unknown is the fact, that Exchange doesn’t support the every Microsoft .NET Framework, and this is causing trouble sometimes. Some admins simply install the latest .NET releases because “it doesn’t hurt”. Well… it hurts!