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showing posts tagged with 'microsoft'
edited by on May 27th 2015, at 15:47
A collegue ran into an issue with Microsoft Outlook (2010) and the AVG Outlook plugin: when attempting to open mails on a shared Exchange mailbox, the message body would be cleared from that e-mail. The message body would be deleted from Exchange itself as well, resulting in other users accessing the mailbox to also see empty message bodies. If a mail contained attachments, they would be left alone.

After a long search, the culprit seemed to be the AVG Outlook plugin. Upon opening an e-mail, the plugin would scan the e-mail, which somehow went wrong, resulting in clearing the message body (probably because it was marked as bad?). Because of the nature of the mailbox (it's a shared Exchange   ...
edited by on May 26th 2015, at 16:17
Two methods of truncating the transaction logs for a database for SQL Server 2008 or newer:

Perform a backup to the nul device, essentially a "black hole":

BACKUP LOG [databaseName] TO DISK = 'nul:'

Temporarily set the recovery model to SIMPLE, then shrink the transaction log:

ALTER DATABASE databaseName SET RECOVERY SIMPLEDBCC SHRINKFILE('databaseName_log', 0, TRUNCATEONLY)ALTER DATABASE databaseName SET RECOVERY FULL

WARNING: truncating the transaction log without a backup may result in data loss in case of a database failure!

EDIT (26/05/2015):

You could attempt the backup/shrink routine without changing the recovery mode, but this will most likely onl  ...
edited by on May 26th 2015, at 14:49

By default, it is not possible to specify passwords (the SecureString type) directly as a plain-text cmdlet parameter because it is unsecure to do so (and they are right). But sometimes, there's no other way to run a cmdlet without specifying the password as plain text as a cmdlet parameter. Luckily, there's an easy workaround by performing a conversion from plain text and store the password in a SecureString object.

$pw = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "your-pw" -AsPlainText -Force

You can then use the $pw object to specify the password in a cmdlet.

For example: resetting the password of an AD account:

Set-ADAccountPassword -Identity my-account -NewPassword $pw
edited by on May 26th 2015, at 14:17
You can move the tempdb of a SQL Server instance to another location using T-SQL, but this requires a little bit of downtime: setting a new location will only take effect after a restart of the SQL Server instance.

First, retrieve the tempdb's current location and logical name:

Use tempdbGOSELECT name,filename FROM sys.sysfilesGO

This should give you two entries: one for the actual database, and one for the transaction log of tempdb. Now that we have the location and logical name, we can change it:

ALTER DATABASE tempdb MODIFY FILE (NAME = tempdev, FILENAME = 'T:\newdir\tempdb.mdf');GOALTER DATABASE tempdb MODIFY FILE (NAME = templog, FILENAME = 'T:\newdir\templog.ldf');GO

Replace the p  ...
edited by on May 26th 2015, at 14:05

If, when attempting to start SQL Server instance, you get an error 1814, this means there's a problem with the tempdb database. Either it can't be created because the disk or volume is not accessible for writing (i.e. a security permission problem), or the volume on which the tempdb resides does not have enough space available. If the latter is the problem, you'll need at least 2 MB of free space for tempdb to be created.

edited by on May 22nd 2015, at 11:26
You can perform resource configuration for SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) through SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Simply connect to the SSAS (select Microsoft Analysis Server as server type and connect to the instance name). Using SSMS allows to change only a limited number of common and advanced parameters. Many of the very advanced parameters (usually those that require a restart of SSAS) can only be configured through a file called msmdsvr.ini.

The INI-file msmdsvr.ini, by default located in %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft SQL Server\<ssas-instance-name>\Config and in fact is an XML-file, allows you to configure both common and advanced parameters of SSAS. By default, the file i  ...
edited by on May 21st 2015, at 16:30
After running complex queries that use the tempdb of a SQL Server instance, it may become necessary to shrink the database again. However, when running the shrink operation on the tempdb, it can result in the database not shrinking at all, even when the used space is minimal.

The reason for this is most likely that the clearance of the tempdb is still in cache and not flushed to disk. You need to flush the changes to disk first, after which you will be able to shrink the tempdb. Do note that flushing will most likely impact database performance, so use with caution. Also, the tempdb will not shrink beyond the initial size, configured in the file group.

DBCC FREESYSTEMCACHE('ALL')USE [tempd  ...
edited by on May 20th 2015, at 16:18

You can retrieve a list of stored procedures in a SQL Server database through T-SQL by querying the built-in information_schema partition.

SELECT * 
FROM db_name.information_schema.routines 
WHERE routine_type = 'PROCEDURE'

Replace db_name with the name of the database you wish to retrieve the list of stored procedures. You can adjust the WHERE-clause even more to get a more narrow list.

You can also do this with the master database which will return all (system and non-system) stored procedures.

edited by on May 20th 2015, at 14:01
Windows Small Business Server 2003 and 2008 (SBS2003 and SBS2008) are still widely in use, but CALs for these are no longer available for purchase. So, what if you require more CALs but cannot get rid of your old SBS?

SBS 2008 and SBS 2011 work on a trust-based CAL count, so they do not need activation. You can simply purchase SBS 2011 Standard CALs and exercise your downgrade rights. Note that this cannot be done with SBS 2011 Premium CALs as they contain features that are not the same as in SBS2008 Premium.

Unfortunately, for SBS 2003, it's not that simple, as it uses online activation for CALs. In this case, you still have to buy SBS 2011 CALs, which are legally usable on your SBS 2003,  ...
edited by on May 20th 2015, at 13:16
Sometimes, when navigating in your local folders (in your user profile), it may seem to take forever to open a specific (local) folder, and the green loading bar at the top crawls forth at a very slow pace. If that is the case, try turning off folder optimization.

Windows 7 introduced a new feature called folder optimization, which is basically telling Windows what to do with the files inside a folder, such as generating thumbnails for pictures and videos, reading metadata from documents, reading media information on music, etc. Occassionally, this process can take a long time, and can really slow down Windows Explorer when attempting to browse such a folder.

If you stumble across such   ...
edited by on May 20th 2015, at 12:51

You can hide user accounts from the Windows Welcome (log on) screen through the registry. This works with Vista and all later versions.

  1. Start up regedit.
  2. Navigate to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
  3. Under Winlogon, create a new key called SpecialAccounts
  4. Under SpecialAccounts, create another key called UserList.
  5. Under UserList, create a DWORD value for each account:
    • Name: the full account name (including spaces)
    • Type: DWORD (32-bit)
    • Value:
      • 0: hides the account
      • 1: shows the account
edited by on May 19th 2015, at 16:10

Probably MSSQL 101, but this is how to quickly retrieve the structure of a table:

EXEC sp_help tbl_name
GO

tbl_name is the name of the table.

edited by on May 19th 2015, at 16:07
When attempting to run an online integrity check, or a backup on a large database (i.e. large data files), you may run into this error:

Error: 5123, Severity: 16, State: 1.CREATE FILE encountered operating system error 665(failed to retrieve text for this error. Reason: 15105) while attempting to open or create the physical file 'D:\MSSQL\Data\db.mdf:MSSQL_DBCC9'.

Further investigation reveals that the error 665 is in fact: The requested operation could not be completed due to a file system limitation.

Backup and consistency (dbcc) check operations requires the creation of a database snapshot. These snapshots are created as sparse files, which only works on NTFS (not ReFS), but has some l  ...
edited by on May 13th 2015, at 14:34

If you accidentally have misplaced or forgotten your Bitlocker Recovery key, but still have access to the system (with an elevated account), you can retrieve the recovery key quite easily through the command line:

Open an elevated command prompt and type:

manage-bde -protectors -get C:

Replace C: with any drive that has Bitlocker enabled. Note that if it's not the system volume but some other drive that's encrypted, you need to unlock it first before you can retrieve the recovery key.

edited by on May 8th 2015, at 14:29
The Trend Micro OfficeScan client can be installed on a workstation via the network (using an UNC-path) through the AutoPCC utility. The client can simply browse the OfficeScan server, locate the autopcc.exe utility, and run it, performing an installation of the OfficeScan client on the computer running the utility. By default, the installation of the client is not silent, meaning the user will see windows and dialogs appearing. Fortunately, it is possible to make AutoPCC to perform the installation completely silently, leaving the user almost unaware that an installation of OfficeScan is occurring.

To change this setting, log on to the OfficeScan server, and browse to the OfficeScan instal  ...
edited by on May 6th 2015, at 09:20

You may have noticed that running the VMWare vSphere client on a display with higher DPI settings causes problems with the mouse cursor alignment when working inside a VM. This is because of a mismatch between the DPI settings of the VM and the DPI settings of your computer.

To resolve, right-click the shortcut to the client, go to the Compatibility tab, and enable Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

The downside of this method is that there will be misalignment of some parts in the client, but it is still workable and moreover, it solves the mouse issue in a VM.

edited by on May 5th 2015, at 12:47
In rare cases, Internet Explorer (any version) tries to always "save" any and all website pages, and locally opened HTM/HTML files. Additionally, you cannot open the About Internet Explorer dialog box (it is either grayed out or nothing happens). There isn't a single cause for this so I tried listing some things you can try to resolve the matter.

Avast is known to cause this because of its SandBox module. Try disabling it, or (temporarily) uninstall Avast entirely.

Security bulletin MS14-021 provides an update, KB2964358, which can cause this if not all previous security updates for IE have been installed. Uninstall the patch, then install all security updates (accept this one),   ...
edited by on May 5th 2015, at 09:37

If Windows Update (or Microsoft Update) produces error code 0x80072EFD, you are most likely blocked by a firewall or a proxy.

  • Check any firewall that may be blocking access to the update sites. This includes any software-based firewall on the server, as well as network firewalls and content filters.
  • If you have configured a proxy, check whether the proxy is reachable and does not block access. If you don't have a proxy server (anymore), it may still be configured. See this article on how to check and resolve.
showing posts tagged with 'microsoft'