Delete OEM partitions in Windows

The awnser: diskpart.exe! Hit “Windows Key” + “R” to open the run dialogue box and type “diskpart” and hit “OK” to open a command prompt window. Type “list disk”. Type “select disk n”. Type “list part”. Type “select part n”. Type “delete partition override”. Type “exit”. Thanks to http://www.disk-partition.com/blog/how-to-delete-an-oem-partition/

Secure your PHP (on Windows)

Although alot of people will be running PHP on an Apache environment I have several reasons to be running mine on Windows, specifically 2012 R2. Lately I’ve been seeing alot of activity of people trying to inject mallicious code into several of my clients websites and so have begun drilling down into securing PHP. To […]

How to get an A grade on SSLLabs with IIS 8.5 on Windows Server 2012 R2

After having some serious problems trying to find proper documentation for how to fix some of the bigger leaks in IIS (such as logjam, FREAK, POODLE) I became frustrated with the lack of documentation. Microsoft itself will point you to Nartac IIS Crypto which is a great tool, but I needed to roll these fixes out […]

Custom Active Directory Domain Services Filter

Using Event Viewer to find error states in the “Active Directory Domain Services” role can be a big pain. I have created a custom filter that only displays errors, warnings and criticals. <QueryList>   <Query Id=”0″ Path=”Directory Service”>     <Select Path=”Directory Service”>*[System[Provider[@Name=’Microsoft-Windows-ActiveDirectory_DomainService’] and (Level=1  or Level=2 or Level=3)]]</Select>     <Select Path=”Directory Service”>*[System[Provider[@Name=’NTDS ISAM’] and (Level=1  […]

Installing ForeFront 2010 on Windows 8 or Server 2012

After my earlier post on ForeFront EndPoint Protection I managed to get several updates from Microsoft to allow it to function but this left me without a working installer for new systems. After ready the patch notes on the hotfixes I found the update responsible for the client (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26583 FEP2010-Update-Rollup-KB2551095-x64-ENU.exe) and managed to find the installer […]

CRM 2011 on Server 2012 (via upgrade)

After a recent upgrade CRM had stopped working on our new Server 2012 based server. During the upgrade CRMs application had been whiped and simply adding the the old folder back to IIS 8.0 (And setting up the proper permissions) did help in recovering the web based service but this did not fix the issues for […]

Exchange 2010 on Windows Server 2012 after upgrade

After a recent upgrade I ran into a problem with Exchange 2010 no longer accepting WinRM connections from an external address. This caused an error to appear in the Exchange Management Console stating it could no longer connect. Fixing this problem was pretty straight forward; Open the Server Manager Select the correct Server Goto Manage […]

Login out of Windows 2012 using Remote Desktop

Many system administrators will be using RDP to connect to the servers they manage. Usually after you are done you want to log-out but this seems to be gone in Server 2012. However, if you open the Start Menu and click on your username in the top-right corner you can select “Sign out”, which is […]

Lync 2010 on Server 2012 after upgrade

After upgrading to Server 2012 I ran into an issue that Lync would no longer start the Front-End service on the server. After trying several things I concluded to try and “reinstall” the Front-end server. After some crashes this gave me the following error: Error: An error occurred: “Microsoft.Rtc.Management.Deployment.UnknownObjectException” “Error accessing registry key “AppID\{9fa5c497-f46d-447f-8011-05d03d7d7ddc}”.”

Uninstalling ForeFront 2010 from Server 2012 after server upgrade

After doing several installations of Server 2012 on Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 servers I became convinced that I should migrate the entire internal serverpark to 2012. I ran into several issues (which I will post later on) but most annoyingly of all is ForeFront 2010 on the servers. Note: Microsoftsoft has, since creation […]